Traveling Through The Jungle - Negro Fife And Drum Band Music From The Deep Sout

Fife and Drum band music is quite rare and these recordings are a great reflection of this powerful sound. This album presents three different bands. The first is from Georgia, featuring Ephram Carter, J.W. Jones and James Jones. Their sound is big, loud and fast. The second band is from Sledge, Mississippi and along with Sid Hemphill’s fife, is a quills (sounding much like a fife) from Hemphill and Alec Askew. The third band is from Senatobia, Mississippi w/ Napoleon Strickland and Othar Turner on fife accompanied by others. Their sound is a bit slower than Carter’s band. The drums played on the album are bass, bass kettle and kettle, as well as washboard and waste basket. Check out the indispensable historical liner notes by University of Memphis’ ethnomusicologist David Evans. Solid stuff all the way through. No FCC’s.

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Side A
1. Mid. Big bass drum, frantic fife.
2. Mid / Fast. INSTRUMENTAL. Fife call intro, then stomping beat. Powerful.
3. Mid / Fast. Beautiful, quick fife work, pounding drums.
4. Mid. Body slaps, drum, spoken vocal. No fife here.
5. Mid / Fast. Big drums, great fife.
6. Mid. Fife solo.
7. Mid. Fife intro, then the pounding drums and vocal.
8. Mid. Marching drum beat, fife in background.
9. Mid. Quills in front, rolling drums more in the back.
10. Mid. ‘The Death March’. Rolling, marching beat.
11. Mid. Quills w/ vocal holler.
12. Mid. Big marching beat w/ fife.

Side B
13. Mid. Little Walter’s ‘My Babe’ (written by Willie Dixon). Marching beat, mellowish fife.
14. Mid. Strickland on fife, Fred McDowell on waste basket.
15. Mid. Classic ‘Sitting On Top Of The World’. Killer w/ whistling and big bass washtub.
16. Mid. Bass drum, fife w/ calls and hollers.
17. Mid. Kettle drum intro, then fife, then bass drum and vocal.
18. Mid. Whistling and washtub by Compton Jones.
19. Mid. ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’. Marching beat, great vocal and fife.