[.ca] Everybody Hollerin' Goat

From Amazon.com:
Othar Turner is one of the last practitioners of a musical form teetering perilously close to extinction. As he'll gladly tell you himself, Turner has been playing Southern fife and drum music for eight of his nine decades. Though he's appeared on several blues compilations over the years, Goat is the most substantive and satisfying survey of Turner's unique talents. Recorded by guitarist Luther Dickinson (son of Jim) and author Robert Gordon (It Came from Memphis) at barbecue parties held on Turner's Tate County, Mississippi, farm, Goat sways from delicate grace to shine-fueled hill-country blues to shambolic spiritual evocation. It is every bit as essential a document of America's folk-music heritage as anything Harry Smith or Alan Lomax ever offered up for posterity. And as a promising side note, Turner's band includes some of his children and grandchildren, hopefully ensuring that when he does leave this world, the fife and drum tradition won't leave with him. --Matt Hanks

Othar Turner is the living master of the cane fife, a short piece of hollowed-out sugar cane with holes. The simplistic, tranced-out party music known as fife and drum--the most clearly African-sounding of all traditional blues--remained all but hidden to most listeners until 1959, when Alan Lomax first encountered and recorded it in Mississippi. There are but a handful of records of real fife and drum music, and this clear-sounding document, with multiple versions of the classic "Shimmy She Wobble," might be the best record yet made of this intoxicating sound. --Mike McGonigal

one great hypnotic groove:
Othar Turner, if you were lucky to ever seem him perform, was an amazing performer and a gentleman to boot. The full energy of one of his famous annual summer goat fryups at his home in Senatobia, Missisipi is captured here. The nearest muscial form to "drum and fife" comes from the west coast of Africa, that's how old this musical form is, although there is some blues guitar mixed in on some of the tracks. The fife gives a very primordial, birdcalling edge to the drums. "Drum and fife" is an acquired taste, but like eating spices, once you've acquired that taste, you cannot get enough. Although Othar died last year, apparantly his granddaughter will keep the tradition alive.

Wellsprings of music is right here:
If you are looking for the wellsprings of music, this CD might be a good place to start. This is as close to Africa as American music gets. The Mississippi fife-and-drum tradition has been explored on record by Alan Lomax and others, and it is always surprising to people unfamiliar with this music that such things exist. This CD is a powerful addition to the recorded heritage of Mississippi and the United States. Since 1923 or so, 90-year-old Othar Turner has been playing cane fifes of his own making, and family and friends accompany him down on his farm with drums--bass and snare. He holds 2-day picnics filled with fife-and-drum music, traditional blues jams, barbecued pig and goat, moonshine whiskey, beer and pop. Fife playing is an art in the oral tradition, passed on from generation to generation. Turner learned it from R.E. Williams, and taught it to his children and grandchildren. You might want to start with track five, one of three versions of "Shimmy She Wobble" on the CD. Turn up the volume and lose yourself in the sounds of hypnotic drumming, shouts, chants and screams, and fife. Then listen to the cricket-saturated "Roll and Tumble," one of several slide-guitar blues on the CD. Then roam freely and take it all in. If you really want to know the roots of music--all music--this is a place to start. Turner and friends make music from someplace deeper than we experience most of the time; but you can find it in yourself if you allow yourself to get lost in this stuff. Especially recommended for those who want to know blues and rock's beginnings.

Otha Rules!:
This isn't for everyone, but if you're into deep blues roots, it is a must have. Blues, soul, funk, mother Africa, barbequed goat, cold beer and hot sweaty bodies: you can feel it all on this one!

Absolutely cool!:
Mr. Turner, a 91 year old former sharecropper from Senatobia, MS. is the last person playing a type of music called "African American Fife and Drum" music. It predates, and is one of the foundations for, the Blues. The music is a combination of African, Blues and march rhythms. You have to hear it to believe it and understand what I am talking about. The recordings on this CD are primarily "field recordings" that capture the atmosphere in which this type of music is played, i.e., a picnic or party-type setting. To fully appreciate what a picnic is, go to Mr. Turner's home in Senatobia Mississippi on Labor Day weekend and attend his annual picnic, which has been a tradition at his home for over 25 years. You will never forget the experience and you will never forget the hospitality of Mr. Turner and his family. Alan Lomax called African-American fife and drum music his most important discovery, and Mr. Turner has been honored by the Smithsonian, the National Endowment for the Arts, and has been featured in the Oxford American and on ABC's Good Morning America. Listen to this incredible and unique album and you will see why!

• Shimmy She Wobble
• Bounceball
• Short'nin'/Henduck
• Too Slow
• Shimmy She Wobble
• Station Blues
• Shake 'Em
• My Babe
• Boogie
• How Many Mo' Years?
• Roll and Tumble
• 2-Stepping Place
• Granny, Do Your Dog Bite?
• Shimmy She Wobble
• Glory, Glory Hallelujah