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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
Product Description
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