We play “When the Saints go Marching In,” “Glory Hallelujah…” that’s it. Our closing song, we always play, I don’t care what we play, our closing song we plays a church song. We plays the blues, and we plays church songs. Everybody be loving and peacable, we all is one there. No clowning, cusing, hootin’ and hollering, no guns, no cutting and shooting. The law even come out and have us to play the drum. We all meets there, white people come there just like colored, right there sit down, laugh, and talk. Just to keep from being at home lonesome, just goes out for an enjoyment, that’s the way we do. Little kids go out and dance behind the drums. OTHAR TURNER v/o: Laughing and talking, just associating with one another. (This montage builds in intensity as music continues. (Montage, band playing, people doing chores, enjoying themselves. And people laughing and talking and all that, till twelve o’clock. Then we operates that and we plays the drums and blow the cane, and so forth. And people all came to that place where the drum’s playin’ and the cane is blowing. Then I gets my drums and starts my drum to playin’, cane to blowing, that draws the people farther and nearer. Then shots of them playing in the yard, people reacting). (The car pulls up to a gathering, playing in where they are sitting. Don't nobody train me nothing, and taken that for myself. And so I tried, and tried, and I learnt it. If you think you can do that, and believe you can do it, try! And I said, “Well, I believe I can do that, now I'll try doing it.” The more I tried, the better it come to me. Well the feeling in me say, "well look what you see somebody else do. When I was a kid, I would stand out and look at them. Well I got me a band and started and I learned to, playing drums. OTHAR TURNER v/o: So, they was old drum players, and after they was playing drum, well peoples, you know, just learnt… It was more learnt just like I seen them, and I figured I could do it. Cut to shot of back of a pickup truck, the band in the back, driving). (Shot of him playing the fife, much like a flute. That’s the way I learned how to blow a cane. ![]() One piece, if you ever learn one, just keep on tuning and tuning till another one come, you'll learn that. Just like playing a guitar, you can start playing a guitar. The more you do a thing, the more perfect it come to you. I just kept a tuning, and tuning, and blowing and tuning. ![]() OTHAR TURNER v/o: Well I started making a cane, blowing a cane, when I was thirteen years old. Interspersed are sounds of pipe blowing). (He heats a metal stick in a bucket with fire, then uses it to finish his fife, clearing out the middle, making stops. I like to meet everybody with a smiling face. And I work for that affection, raised all of my family. I want friends I wants good behind me when I’m dead and gone, I want somewhere for my flowers, for people to speak well of me. Treat people like you wish to be treated. My mother taught me from a baby, until I got big enough to know to get out on my own, just treat everybody right. Never been arrested and carried and locked up in jail in my life. I can dance, I can sing, ride horses, chop cotton, and plow, whoop and holler, cut somersets. And I been right around from Free Springs Church, Water Valley, Oxford, Holly Springs, Chulahoma, Looxahoma, Senatobia, Thyatira, Como, and Sardis. Then after then, I got so I could crawl around and walk. And I was brought here in my mother’s arms.Ī little bitty suckling baby. ![]() OTHAR TURNER v/o: I was born east of Canton, east of Jackson and Canton, Mississippi. (He slashes the branches off a thin tree). (Addresses the horse, throws a saddle over it). How can I drive him, how can I drive him, Whoa, captain, whoa captain, whoa captain, and it won’t be long Lyrics: Oh, going to get up in the morning, ![]() Montage of shots of landscape, dwellings, day to day activities). (Sounds of crickets, fade up on a field filled with cows at dawn. Transcription for Gravel Springs, Gravel Springs
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