The snare drum or side drum is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often used in orchestras, concert bands, marching bands, parades, drumlines, drum corps, and more. It is one of the central pieces in a drum set, a collection of percussion instruments designed to be played by a seated drummer and used in many genres of music.
A fife is a small, high-pitched, transverse aerophone, that is similar to the piccolo. The fife originated in medieval Europe and is often used in Fife and Drum Corps, military units, and marching bands. Someone who plays the fife is called a fifer. The word fife comes from the German Pfeife, meaning pipe, which comes from the Latin word pipare, possibly via French fifre.
R. L. Burnside was an American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He played music for much of his life but received little recognition before the early 1990s. In the latter half of that decade, Burnside recorded and toured with Jon Spencer, garnering crossover appeal and introducing his music to a new fan base in the punk and garage rock scenes.
A Fife and Drum Corps is a musical ensemble consisting of fifes and drums. In the United States of America, fife and drum corps specializing in colonial period impressions using fifes, rope tension snare drums, and (sometimes) rope tension bass drums are known as Ancient Fife and Drum Corps. Many of these ensembles originated from a type of military field music.
Tav Falco's Panther Burns, sometimes shortened to (The) Panther Burns, is a rock band originally from Memphis, Tennessee, United States, led by Tav Falco. They are best known for having been part of a set of bands emerging in the late 1970s and early 1980s who helped nationally popularize the blending of blues, country, and other American traditional music styles with rock music among groups playing in alternative music and punk music venues of the time. The earliest and most renowned of these groups to imbue these styles with expressionist theatricality and primitive spontaneity were The Cramps, largely influenced by rockabilly music. Forming just after them in 1979, Panther Burns drew on obscure country blues music, Antonin Artaud's works like The Theater and Its Double, beat poetry, and Marshall McLuhan's media theories for their early inspiration. Alongside groups like The Cramps and The Gun Club, Panther Burns ranked among the contributing influences and progenitors of the Southern Gothic-tinged roots music revival scene that arose during the last two decades of the 20th century and continued into the early 2000s.
Jessie Mae Hemphill was an American electric guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist specializing in the North Mississippi hill country blues traditions of her family and regional heritage.
Othar "Otha" Turner was one of the last well-known fife players in the vanishing American fife and drum blues tradition. His music was also part of the African-American genre known as Hill country blues.
The United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps is one of four premier musical organizations of the United States Army. Members perform using musical instruments and wearing uniforms similar to those used by military musicians of the Continental Army during the American Revolution.
A jazz club is a venue where the primary entertainment is the performance of live jazz music, although some jazz clubs primarily focus on the study and/or promotion of jazz-music. Jazz clubs are usually a type of nightclub or bar, which is licensed to sell alcoholic beverages. Jazz clubs were in large rooms in the eras of Orchestral jazz and big band jazz, when bands were large and often augmented by a string section. Large rooms were also more common in the Swing era, because at that time, jazz was popular as a dance music, so the dancers needed space to move. With the transition to 1940s-era styles like Bebop and later styles such as soul jazz, small combos of musicians such as quartets and trios were mostly used, and the music became more of a music to listen to, rather than a form of dance music. As a result, smaller clubs with small stages became practical.
Jazz drumming is the art of playing percussion in jazz styles ranging from 1910s-style Dixieland jazz to 1970s-era jazz fusion and 1980s-era Latin jazz. The techniques and instrumentation of this type of performance have evolved over several periods, influenced by jazz at large and the individual drummers within it. Stylistically, this aspect of performance was shaped by its starting place, New Orleans, as well as numerous other regions of the world, including other parts of the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa.
A Corps of Drums, also sometimes known as a Fife and Drum Corps, Fifes and Drums or simply Drums is a unit of several national armies. Drummers were originally established in European armies to act as signallers. The major historical distinction between a military band and a corps of drums, was that 'drummers' were not employed to play their instruments to entertain or delight, but rather they carried out a utilitarian battlefield role. This role was fulfilled by trumpeters or buglers in the cavalry and the artillery, who did not form into comparative formed bodies in the way that drummers did; therefore, an orthodox corps of drums will exist in the infantry arm.
Hill country blues is a regional style of country blues. It is characterized by a strong emphasis on rhythm and percussion, steady guitar riffs, few chord changes, unconventional song structures, and heavy emphasis on the "groove", which has been characterized as the "hypnotic boogie".
Shardé Thomas is an American fife player in the vanishing American fife and drum blues tradition. She is the granddaughter of Othar Turner, who founded the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, and cousin to bandmate Andre Turner Evans. She plays a homemade cane fife.
Calvin Jackson was an American drummer from north Mississippi. He is considered an innovator in the Hill country blues style of drumming, having incorporated elements of the regional Fife and drum bands style in the blues band setting.
The Kropotkins are an American avant-garde music collective based in Memphis and New York City founded in 1994 by drummer Jonathan Kane and Dave Soldier, who is best known as a violinist but plays banjo in the group. Its other members have included Lorrette Velvette (vocals), Samm Bennett (percussion), Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground, Mark Feldman (violin), Mark Deffenbaugh, Alex Greene and Charles Burnham (violin). The band is named after Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin. In 1999, the group had six members. Soldier had the idea to start the band while performing with John Cale at a concert in Germany; Soldier has described this idea as "a kind of epiphany."
Sid Hemphill was an American blues multi-instrumentalist and bandleader who played in his own string band mainly in Mississippi. He recorded for Alan Lomax in 1942 and again in 1959.
RL Boyce is a Grammy nominated American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist born and raised in Como, Mississippi, United States.
Dominique Flemons is an American old-time music, Piedmont blues, and neotraditional country multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. He is a proficient player of the banjo, fife, guitar, harmonica, percussion, quills, and rhythm bones. He is known as "The American Songster" as his repertoire of music spans nearly a century of American folklore, ballads, and tunes. He has performed with Mike Seeger, Joe Thompson, Martin Simpson, Boo Hanks, Taj Mahal, Old Crow Medicine Show, Guy Davis, and The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band.
Shake Hands with Shorty is the debut studio album by American band North Mississippi Allstars. It was released on May 9, 2000 through Tone-Cool Records. It features contributions from Cedric and Garry Burnside, Othar Turner, Jim Dickinson, Jimmy Crosthwait, Richard "Hombre" Price, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Steve Selvidge, Jimbo Mathus, Tate County Singers, Stu Cole and Greg Humphreys. Recording sessions took place in 1999 at Zebra Ranch Studios in Tate County, Mississippi, except for Price's bass part on the song "K.C. Jones " was recorded at House of Bob. Production was handled by Cody and Luther Dickinson.
51 Phantom is the second studio album by American band North Mississippi Allstars. It was released on October 9, 2001 through Tone-Cool Records. Recording sessions took place at Zebra Ranch Complex in Tate County, Mississippi. Production was handled by Jim Dickinson. It features contributions from Ben Nichols and John C. Stubblefield of Lucero, Brenda Patterson, Jackie Johnson, Susan Marshall, Othar Turner and Jim Dickinson.
