Hemphill & Turner Families

A few years ago, in these sessions, we covered some of the artists who lived in the hill country region of north Mississippi – men like Fred McDowell, Junior Kimbrough and RL Burnside. Today we are going back to that region to spend time in and around a place called Como.

To put the geography in context, the three towns we are going to speak about today – Como, Sledge and another called Senatobia all fit in a 10 km triangle about 50 km south of Memphis

These artists we will cover comprise a remarkable blind musician by the name of Sid Hemphill, his granddaughter Jesse Mae Hemphill, a fife player named Otha Turner and the modern incarnation of Otha Turner’s band – the Rising Star Drum and Fife Band. And if we have time, we will throw in a bit of the Nth Mississippi Allstars as well.

The first of these artists, Sid Hemphill, was born around 1876/78. Sid was the master of nine instruments, but was primarily known locally as a fiddle player who recorded 22 tracks for musicologist Alan Lomax in Sledge MS, not far from Como, in 1942.

We will start with one of the tracks recorded in the 1942 session, with Hemphill on fiddle and vocals, supported by Alec Askew, Lucius Smith and Will Head

1. John Henry – 1942 – LWBB – Tk 20 – 3.13

Lomax returned to the region seventeen years later in 1959, primarily to record Hemphill again. Drum and fife track from this second session, this time at Como featuring three brothers Ed Young, Lonnie Young and GD Young.

2. Jim and John – 1959 – LWBB – Tk 22 – 2.12

(As side note, it was at this second 1959 session at Como that a shy 55yo old farmer named Fred McDowell stepped out of the shadows and recorded Shake ‘Em On Down and take his place in blues history).

Sid Hemphill was the father of Rosa Hemphill who also recorded for Lomax in 1959 and through another daughter, grandfather to blues woman Jesse Mae Hemphill

Jessie Mae Hemphill was surrounded by music from the moment she was born in nearby Senetobia in 1934. As a young girl in the early 40’s, Jessie Mae was heavily influenced by the music at family and community gatherings; both church music and the blues.

Throughout the ‘50s, ‘60s, and early ’70s, she played drums and guitar with various bands, never straying far from her roots. She lived in Memphis for 20 years, playing on Beale Street when she wasn’t working various odd jobs. By the time she decided to return home to the country in the mid ‘70s, she had all but left the drums behind and focused mainly on her guitar playing.

Jessie Mae’s solo recording career began at age 45 in 1979. A track from that year, recorded near Como.

3. Take Me Home With You Baby – 1979 – Shake It Baby – Tk 9 – 2.45

One commentator has written Her songs are driven by a relentless rhythm, powered by a fierce strum - with a slide up one string and down the next for accent. Hemphill plays way up the neck, with both barred and fingered chords, and bends a string when the mood strikes her. The stomping guitar parts act as a rhythmic echo to the words and percussion.

Track recorded a year later in Memphis

4. Hard Times - 1980 – Shake It Baby – Tk 10 – 2.52

Both the tracks we have just played featured on her first album, She Wolf released in 1981. Unfortunately the album was only released in Europe and although it gained critical acclaim among blues enthusiasts, it failed to reach a broader audience.

Jesse Mae toured Europe on several occasions playing at large halls and festivals. In 1986 she recorded tracks for the French Black and Blue label, which achieved some recognition in the US. She won the W.C. Handy Award for Best Traditional Female Blues Artist in both 1987 and 1988, even though she had yet to release a full-length album in the states.

In 1991 she released her second album, and the first in the US, titled Feelin’ Good. The album won the Handy Award for Best Acoustic Album that year.

Title track from that album

5. Feelin Good – Jan 1988 – Shake It Baby – Tk 1 – 3.50

These tracks provide a good sense of the feel of Hemphill’s entertaining at house parties and picnics of the region. Her songwriting often wedded the stomp and march rhythms of the fife and drum bands to her amplified guitar work.

6. Shake It Baby – Nov 1985 – Shake It Baby – Tk 8 – 3.22

Coming off the success of Feelin’ Good, her career looked bright for the ‘90s. She was well-known in Europe and the US, was touring extensively, had gotten good reviews, and her albums were selling well. But in 1993 she suffered a stroke that paralysed her left side, leaving her unable to play guitar. Jessie Mae Hemphill retired from touring and returned to Senatobia. She still sang and played the tambourine in church. "I am singing for the Lord now," she said.

We will come back to Jesse Mae soon, for its now time to introduce Otha Turner.

Otha Turner was the last surviving master of the Mississippi back-country fife-and-drum tradition. He was born in 1908, and got his start as a performer by playing the fife and drums at local picnic celebrations. Money he raised playing at these gatherings enabled him to buy the farm near Como, where he lived with his family in relative obscurity for 60 yrs

while leading the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, a loose grouping of relatives, friends and neighbours which played primarily at his own picnics.

By the 1990s Turner was the final surviving link to fife-and-drum's roots; and at the age of 90, his music was finally preserved on an album called Everybody Hollerin' Goat, recorded between 1992 and 1997 by producer Luther Dickinson. The album got its name from the bar b que goat sandwiches he would serve at these picnics. "People always want goat at a picnic, so I try to have it for them," said Turner. "Everybody always hollering goat."

7. Shimmy She Wobble - 1997 – Hollerin Goat – Tk 1 – 4.18 play 2.00

The album was named one of the top five blues albums of the decade by Rolling Stone magazine.

Fife and drum music can be traced back to British and early American military music. In a time when drumming by slaves was strictly forbidden for fear of illicit communication, the fife and drum was an acceptable outlet, even used by confederate armies during the civil war.

Today, the fife and drum music performed by the Turner family has more in common with the music of West Africa. Alan Lomax, considers it one of his greatest discoveries in a lifetime of research. In his 1993 book, "Land Where the Blues Began," he wrote: "in voodoo ceremonies, dancers make pelvic gestures toward the drum to honour the holy music that is inspiring them. I never expected to see this African behaviour in the hills of Mississippi, just a few miles south of Memphis."

8. Station Blues - 1997 – Hollerin Goat – Tk 6 – 2.10, but start at 1.00

A follow-up album, Senegal to Senatobia, appeared in 2000. This album paired Otha Turner with several other musicians, including producer Luther Dickinson on slide guitar and a Senegalese kora player.

Interestingly the album also featured one Abe Young on drums. Abe was the son of fife player and drummer Lonnie Young, who featured on the second track we played today.

It was the last album Turner would complete; he died February 26 2003 at the age of 94. The impact of Turner's brief public revival of the fife and drum style was made apparent in 2002 when his "Shimmy She Wobble" was used in Martin Scorscese's film, Gangs of New York.

9. Bounce Ball - 2000 – From Senegal – Tk 3 – 3.44, fade out at 3.00

Both these albums featured guitarist Luther Dickinson, who with his brother Cody make up two thirds of the North Mississippi Allstars. Luther and Cody are sons of famed producer Jim Dickinson.

Dr. Sylvester Oliver, an ethnomusicologist from Rust College in nearby Holly Springs, sees the drums as the historic cultural centerpiece of Hill Country music. "I have interviewed several elderly individuals who told me...they would not start their picnic unless the drums came and kind of sanctified the area. They always wanted the drums to come and bless the area."

Jesse Mae Hemphill did make one last album, a two disc set released in 2003 and recorded live in a Como barn with a long list of guests including members of the Kimbrough and Burnside extended families, and Otha Turner’s Band.

We will let Jesse Mae do the intro before she moves on to a gospel song that you will all know.

10. Fife & Drum Intro – 2003 – Dare You To Do It Again – Disc 1 Tk 1 – 3.24, start at 1.25

11. Lay My Burden Down – 2003 – Dare You To Do It Again – Disc 1 Tk 2 – 4.33 fade out at 2.35

Jesse Mae didn’t record again after her 2003 album and died on July 22, 2006. She is remembered through the JMH Foundation, a non-profit vehicle to draw public attention to the hill country blues music indigenous to the Northern Mississippi region, thereby ensuring its preservation.

But the Nth Miss Hill Country sound is very much alive through the music of the Nth Miss Allstars and the descendents of the Burnside, Kimbrough and Turner families.

To give you an idea how the nth MS sound has evolved, we will finish up with a track from a North Missisisppi Allstars live album recorded 62 years after we started, at the 2004 Bonnaroo festival in Manchester Tn.

Track featuring Otha Turner’s grandchildren in his Rising Star Fife and Drum Band. You can hear RL Burnside helping with the intro:

12. Shimmy She Wobble/Station Blues - 2004 – Live at Bonnaroo – Tk 9 – 9.12,

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