Otha Turner and the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band - Shimmy She Wobble

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part III of a three part pancocojams series of examples of the early Jazz song "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble" That tune is also known as "Shimmy She Wobble".

This post showcases a performance of "Shimmy She Wobble" by Otha Turner and the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band. This post also showcases a contemporary performance of this tune by The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band without Otha Turner.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/mckinneys-cotton-pickers-shimmy-she.html for Part I of this series.

Part I of this pancocojams series provides information about that 1917 composition. Part I also showcases a 1928 recording of "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble" by the African American Jazz band McKinney's Cotton Pickers.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/spencer-betchel-shim-me-sha-wabble.html for Part II of this series.

Part II of this pancocojams series  showcases a recording of this tune by Sidney Bechet.

The content of this post is presented for historical, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

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INFORMATION ABOUT INFORMATION ABOUT THE TUNE "SHIM ME SHA WABBLE"
"Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble" was composed in 1917 by the African American composer Spencer Williams.

http://riverwalkjazz.stanford.edu/#program/tishomingo-blues-spencer-williams indicates that "Spencer Williams (1889-1965) was one of the earliest black composers to shape jazz as popular music."

Click Part I for more information about "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble".

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INFORMATION ABOUT OTHA TURNER & THE RISING STAR FIFE AND DRUM BAND
"Othar "Otha" Turner (June 2, 1907 – February 26, 2003)[1] was one of the last well-known fife players in the vanishing American fife and drum blues tradition.[2] He was born in Madison County, Mississippi, and lived his entire life in northern Mississippi as a farmer, where in 1923, aged 16, he learned to play fifes fashioned out of rivercanes.

Turner's Rising Star Fife and Drum Band (which consisted of friends and relatives) primarily played at farm parties.[2] Turner, along with bandmates Mae Hemphill and Abe Young, performed as the "Mississippi Fife and Drum Corps" on an episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood that aired on November 18, 1982.[3] They began to receive wider recognition in the 1990s. They appeared on Mississippi Blues in Memphis Vol. 1 in 1993, followed by inclusion in many other blues collections. They released their own critically acclaimed album Everybody Hollerin' Goat in 1998. This was followed by From Senegal to Senatobia in 1999, which combined bluesy fife and drum music with musicians credited as "the Afrossippi Allstars".

The title, Everybody Hollerin' Goat, refers to a tradition Turner began in the late 1950s of hosting Labor Day picnics where he would personally butcher and cook a goat in an iron kettle, and his band would provide musical entertainment. The picnics began as a neighborhood and family gathering; it grew over the years to attract musical fans, first from Memphis, Tennessee, and later from all over the world.

The song, "Shimmy She Wobble", from Everybody Hollerin' Goat was featured in the 2002 film, Gangs of New York. Martin Scorsese, the film's director, featured Turner in his 2003 PBS mini-series The Blues as a link between African rhythms and American blues. The concept was continued on the 2003 album Mississippi to Mali by Corey Harris. The album was dedicated to Turner, who died a week before he was scheduled to record for the album. His granddaughter and protégé Shardé Thomas, then 12 years old, filled in for the recording sessions.

Othar Turner died in Gravel Springs, Mississippi, aged 95, on February 26, 2003.[1] His daughter, Bernice Turner Pratcher, who had been living in a nursing home for some time suffering from breast cancer, died the same day, aged 48. A joint funeral service was held on March 4, 2003, in Como, Mississippi. A procession leading to the cemetery was led by the Rising Star and Fife Band, with Shardé Thomas, then 13 years old, at its head playing the fife."

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SHOWCASE VIDEOS
Example #1: Othar Turner and the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band - Shimmy She Wobble (1)

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Sam Collins Published on May 2, 2012

Credited to Othar Turner's Rising Star Fife & Drum Band, Everybody Hollerin' Goat is a collection of haunting, authentic Mississippi-born fife and drum blues from Turner, aged 90 at the time of recording this, his solo debut. A compilation of field recordings and home recordings, it was assembled by Luther Dickinson, the son of the legendary Memphis producer Jim Dickinson.
- by Jason Ankeny

seated photo: in Gravel Springs, Mississippi by William R. Ferris
-snip-
For an article about Othar Turner's community picnics, click http://www.folkstreams.net/principal,58http://www.folkstreams.net/principal,58 "Othar Turner, Cane Fife Maker" by William Ferris

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Example #2: Rising Star Fife & Drum Band - Shimmy She Wobble - North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic 2010



Max Shores, Uploaded on Jul 19, 2010

Led by Sharde Thomas on the fife, The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band performs "Shimmy She Wobble" with Ricky Davis of Blue Mother Tupelo on guitar, Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars and Hill Country Review on drums, and Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars and the Black Crowes on bass. This song was recorded at the 5th annual North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic, a two-day event which takes place in Potts Camp, MS.

The North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic is hosted by Kenny Brown who played guitar with the late blues legend, R. L. Burnside. The event is patterned after an annual event held for decades by the late Otha Turner of Gravel Springs, MS who is Sharde Thomas' grandfather. Ms. Thomas learned to play the fife from Mr. Turner. The Otha Turner family picnic (sometimes called the Goat Roast because goat sandwiches are served) is still held in Gravel Springs, MS each year on the last weekend in August.

More about Otha Turner:
http://www.othaturner.

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My thanks to Otha Turner for his musical legacy. My thanks also to The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band for carrying on the tradition of African American fife and drum bands.

Thanks also to the publishers of these videos on YouTube. My thanks to the all those who are quoted in this post.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

McKinney's Cotton Pickers - "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble" (information & example)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a three part pancocojams series of examples of the early
Jazz tune "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble". That tune is also known as "Shimmy She Wobble".

This post provides information about the "shimmy" and about the 1917 instrumental "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble". Part I also showcases a 1928 recording of "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble" by the African American Jazz band McKinney's Cotton Pickers.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/spencer-betchel-shim-me-sha-wabble.html for Part II of this series. Part II of this pancocojams series showcases a recording of this tune by Sidney Bechet.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/otha-turner-and-rising-star-fife-drum.html for Part III of this pancocojams series. Part III showcases a 1978 rendition of this tune by Otha Turner & The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band, and a contemporary performance of this tune by The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band.

The content of this post is presented for historical, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE TUNE "SHIM ME SHA WABBLE"
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimmy
"A shimmy is a dance move in which the body is held still, except for the shoulders, which are alternated back and forth. When the right shoulder goes back, the left one comes forward. It may help to hold the arms out slightly bent at the elbow, and when the shoulders are moved, keep the hands in the same position.

In 1917, a dance-song titled "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble" by Spencer Williams was published, as was "The Jazz Dance, which included the "Shimmy-She", among others.

Flappers often performed the dance in the 1920s. The origin of the name is often attributed to Gilda Gray, a Polish emigrant to America. An anecdote says that when she was asked about her dancing style, she answered, in heavy accent, "I'm shaking my chemise". However, in an interview Gilda denied having said this, and earlier usages of the word are recorded. In the late 1910s others were also attributed as being the "inventor" of the shimmy, including Bee Palmer. Mae West, in her autobiography Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It, claimed to have retitled the "Shimmy-Shawobble" as the Shimmy herself, after seeing the moves in some black nightclubs."
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This Wikipedia excerpt is re-formatted by me to increase its readability and to highlight the sentence about the Shimmy She Wabble" tune.
-snip-
http://riverwalkjazz.stanford.edu/#program/tishomingo-blues-spencer-williams indicates that "Spencer Williams (1889-1965) was one of the earliest black composers to shape jazz as popular music."

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Here's more information about the tune "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble" from http://www.folkstreams.net/principal,58 "Othar Turner, Cane Fife Maker" by
William Ferris

"Then I start the drums to playing and the cane fifes to blowing. We play "Shimmy She Wobble,"8 "My Baby Don't Stand No Cheating On Her."9 "Granny, Will Your Dog Bite?" "Rolling and Tumbling,"10 "Glory Hallelujah,1111 "When the Saints Go Marching In." We play all stuff like that you know"...

Note from that article:
"Shimmie-She-Wobble" refers to a group of freely improvised songs named after the popular dance of the 1920s. It was recorded in 1928 on Victor by McKinney's Cotton Pickers with the title "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble" and can be heard by Turner's band on Travelling Through the Jungle."
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In the context of this conversation, "making monkey shine" and "cuttin up" mean to "fool around with" the music, playing just for enjoyment and not for serious intent.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/what-cutting-monkey-shines-cut-shine.html for a pancocojams post on the American colloquial expressions "cutting monkeyshine" & "cutting shine".

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SHOWCASE VIDEO
McKinney's Cotton Pickers - SHIM-ME-SHA-WABBLE (1928)

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bsgs98, Uploaded on Apr 22, 2009

"SHIM-ME-SHA-WABBLE"
McKinney's Cotton Pickers, Directed by Don Redman
Composed by Spencer Williams
Recorded July 12, 1928

Personnel:
Don Redman, George Thomas, James Dudley - Alto saxes
Prince Robinson - tenor sax and clarinet
John Nesbitt, Langston Curl - trumpets
Claude Jones - trombone
Todd Rhodes - piano
David Wilbourn - banjo
Ralph Escudaro - tuba
Cuba Austin - drums

This tune was a standard in the band's library. Don wrote the arrangement on a front porch on Frederick Street in Detroit, opposite a tennis court. Don said that watching the tennis game was relaxing as he worked on this fine old New Orleans stomp tune. The give and take of instruments and the forceful ensemble, bring out all the exuberance of the old tune. Redman himself has a natural joyous way of playing and expresses it here on both baritone and alto saxes.
-snip-
Italics added to highlight those words. "Stomp" here means "dance".

Click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinney's_Cotton_Pickers for information about the African American early jazz band The McKinney Cotton Pickers. An excerpt of that article indicates that "Between 1927 and 1931, they were one of the most popular African-American bands. Many of their records for Victor were bestsellers. "

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My thanks to McKinney's Cotton Pickers for their musical legacy. Thanks also to the publisher of this video on YouTube. My thanks to the all those who are quoted in this post.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.