Fife and drum blues is a rural derivation of traditional country blues

Country blues

Country blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...

. It is performed typically with one lead fife

Fife (musical instrument)

A fife is a small, high-pitched, transverse flute that is similar to the piccolo, but louder and shriller due to its narrower bore. The fife originated in medieval Europe and is often used in military and marching bands. Someone who plays the fife is called a fifer...

 player, often also the band leader and vocalist, and a troop of drummers. Unlike a drum corps

Drum and bugle corps (modern)

A drum and bugle corps, also known as a drum corps, is a musical marching unit consisting of brass instruments, percussion instruments, and color guard. Typically operating as independent non-profit organizations, drum corps perform in competitions, parades, festivals, and other civic functions...

, the drum troop is loosely structured. As such, a fife and drum band may have any number of snare

Snare drum

The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...

, tom

Tom-tom drum

A tom-tom drum is a cylindrical drum with no snare.Although "tom-tom" is the British term for a child's toy drum, the name came originally from the Anglo-Indian and Sinhala; the tom-tom itself comes from Asian or Native American cultures...

, and bass drum

Bass drum

Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...

 players. Fife and drum performances were family affairs often held at reunions and big picnics.

Fifes were carved from cane

Arundo

Arundo is a genus of two or three species of cane: stout, perennial grasses from the family Poaceae, native to the Mediterranean region east to India, China and Japan. They grow to 3–6 m tall, occasionally to 10 m, with leaves 30-60 cm long and 3-6 cm broad.- Species :* Arundo...

 that grew locally. Drums were often hand-made, and equally often just percussive objects. The vocals seem to derive from two main styles:

1. Traditional call and response
   Call and response
   Call and response is a form of "spontaneous verbal and non-verbal interaction between speaker and listener in which all of the statements are punctuated by expressions from the listener."...
   
    of Black Spirituals
2. Short, repetitive lyrics

The genre originates in very rural areas of the farming South and today persists in a stretch of sparsely populated Southern states

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

 stretching from northwest Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

 to an area south of Memphis

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

. Notable performers are Napoleon Strickland

Napoleon Strickland

Napoleon Strickland was a fife and drum blues artist, and songwriter, and vocalist specializing in country blues, sometimes known as Napolian Strickland...

, Dan Emmett

Dan Emmett

Daniel Decatur "Dan" Emmett was an American songwriter and entertainer, founder of the first troupe of the blackface minstrel tradition.-Biography:...

, Othar Turner

Othar Turner

Othar "Otha" Turner was one of the last well-known fife players in the vanishing American fife and drum blues tradition...

, Shardé Thomas

Shardé Thomas

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 fellow band mate Andre Turner Evans...

 and Jessie Mae Hemphill

Jessie Mae Hemphill

Jessie Mae Hemphill was an American award-winning electric guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist specializing in the primal, northern Mississippi country blues traditions of her family and regional heritage....

. Performers play blues songs as well as religious songs such as "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "When I Lay My Burden Down."

See also

• Ancient Fife and Drum Corps
  Ancient Fife and Drum Corps
  An Ancient Fife and Drum Corps is a traditional, typically American fife and drum corps that plays fifes and wooden rope tension snare and bass drums.-History:...
  
  
• Blues
  Blues
  Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
  
  
• Delta Blues
  Delta blues
  The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...
  
  
• Excelsior Brigade Fife and Drum Corps
  Excelsior Brigade Fife and Drum Corps
  The Excelsior Brigade Fife and Drum Corps was founded in 2000 as a combination Ancient Fife and Drum Corps and living history unit dedicated to authentically reproducing the sights and sounds of New York State volunteer militia field musicians as found during the American Civil War.Each year,...
  
  
• Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps
  Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps
  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.It is the...
  
  

Further viewing

• American Patchwork: Songs and Stories of America, part 3: "The Land Where the Blues Began" (1990). Written, directed, and produced by Alan Lomax; developed by the Association for Cultural Equity at Columbia University and Hunter College. North Carolina Public TV; A Dibb Direction production for Channel Four. (Watch film: The Land Where the Blues Began)
• Deep Blues (1991). Directed by Robert Mugge
  Robert Mugge
  Robert Mugge is an American documentary film maker. He specializes in films about music and musicians.Mugge was born in Chicago and grew up primarily in the Washington, D.C. area. He received a B.A...
  
  .
• Gravel Springs Fife and Drum (1971). Filmed by Bill Ferris, recorded by David Evans, and edited by Judy Peiser. (Watch film: Gravel Springs Fife and Drum

Further reading

1. David Evans, "Black Fife and Drum Music in Mississippi"
2. Howard W. Odum, "Religious Folk-Songs of the Southern Negro"
3. Eileen Southern "The Music of Black Americans: A History"
4. http://www.folkstreams.net/context,86