Everybody Hollerin' Goat

Otha Turner | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 24, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Birdman
• ASIN: B000005HOI
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #33,111 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #81 in Music > Blues > Delta Blues

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com's Best of 1998

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

Product Description

The first full length from the man behind the drum and fife sound, possibly the only modern primitive trance music that appeals to the drum-and-bass inclined and blues fans. Even Rolling Stone recognized it as one of the five best blues records of the 90's. Originally recorded between 1992 & 1997. Birdman. 2001.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely cool!, June 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Everybody Hollerin' Goat (Audio CD)

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!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wellsprings of music is right here, August 16, 2000

By 

Christopher Bonds - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Everybody Hollerin' Goat (Audio CD)

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.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one great hypnotic groove, June 24, 2003

By 

dreschrode - See all my reviews

This review is from: Everybody Hollerin' Goat (Audio CD)

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.