Everybody Hollerin’ Goat

In the summer of 1998, I received a phone call from Dolly Carlisle, a documentary Producer/Director that I had worked with many times before. She was producing a documentary in Como, Mississippi, on Othar Turner, a 90 year old man that plays the fife in a drum and fife band, and she wanted to know if I was interested in recording the sound for her film.

I figured this would be an easy enough assignment: record a few interviews, then set up a couple of microphones to record a couple of old farts tapping on their drums while Othar played his homemade cane fife. I envisioned the musicians in a tight semi-circle like a bluegrass band or maybe in a straight line, gospel quartet style. I packed my trusty Sennheiser 416’s for the interview portions of the documentary. I packed a couple of Schoeps and some mic stands for the music. I also packed a few “just in case” microphones.

The first day of production began like most productions: arrive on location at 6 AM, slaughter a couple of goats, and boil the goat meat in a black cauldron over an open fire.

Actually, the goat slaughter was temporarily delayed. A “nanny” goat was accidentally put in the same stall overnight with the “billy” goats. Othar explained that he couldn’t slaughter these goats because the meat wouldn’t taste right because the goats had their “ambitions up”. I understood the concept although I’ve never heard it described in those terms. Some standby goats were brought in from a nearby farm and “production” resumed.

The interviews were interesting but rather straightforward in technical terms. Interviews with Othar’s family members, blues enthusiasts, and a few locals traced the history of traditional drum and fife music as it was melded with African rhythms during the period of slavery in America.

Othar had a makeshift concession stand on his farm where barbecue goat meat sandwiches and beer was for sale. Rumor had it that moonshine could also be purchased if one only knew the right person to ask. Folks started arriving shortly before sundown. They would gather around in small clusters and talk and drink out of paper sacks and laugh a little too loud.

Shortly after dark, the musicians were about ready to play; a snare drum tapping out a rhythm here, another tapping out a different rhythm over there, and a bass drum thumping a beat. Slowly they converged with Othar who was working his way through the crowd of about 200 people. When they began playing together, it was unlike any music I had ever heard before. Similar to traditional drum and fife music, but layered with rhythms of African origin.

This crowd didn’t come to sit in rapt attention and relish the opportunity to hear a style of music that has been passed down in families from the days of slavery, a style of music that only a handful of people in the world still play. Nope. They came to participate. The musicians serpentine through the crowd, sometimes single file, sometimes in tight circles with the crowd gathered in close. There’s a lot of hand clapping and cheering. A few men and women were doing what I will politely call “dirty dancing” and I’m sure getting their ambitions up in the process.

Obviously my original plan of using microphones on stands would not function in this situation. I wanted to capture this event in stereo, but didn’t have the right equipment to do a M-S with the Schoeps. My Plan B was one of the “just in case” microphones. I used a Sony ECM-MS5 stereo microphone in a pistol grip. DP Dave Gossard, AC Sandy Holmes, gaffer Suzanne Cobb who was holding a couple of battery operated lights, and I all had to choreograph our movements with the dancing crowd.

I tried to stay with the camera to maintain a stereo perspective that would match the shot, but frequently this would be impossible. We were attempting to document the experience and at the same time not interfere with the musicians or the listeners. A microphone on a boom pole would have been difficult, if not impossible under the circumstances. The ECM-MS5 did an excellent job under difficult circumstances, although in a few instances I would have preferred the “reach” of a stereo shotgun like the Sanken CSS-5. Being in close to the drummers, frequently I couldn’t hear the signal in my headphones over the ambient level. (A set of Trew Audio HN-7506 headphones would have come in handy.) I could see the needles on my Nagra 4S-TC jumping, so I knew I was recording something!

I was naturally concerned that the ECM-MS5 couldn’t handle the high SPL being generated by a couple of snare drums in close proximity, but it didn’t distort. It produced a very lifelike spatial image. I was quite pleased with the sound when I recently saw the final edit of the documentary. If you ever have the opportunity to see “Everybody Hollerin’ Goat” I know you will enjoy it. There is also a CD available entitled “Everybody Hollerin’ Goat” by Othar Turner and the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band that Rolling Stone magazine named as one of the best Rhythm and Blues albums of the decade. It was produced and multi-track recorded on location by bottleneck guitarist Luther Wilkinson at Othar Turner’s farm from 1992-1997.

I believe we can all apply Othar Turner’s fife philosophy to sound recording:

“You makes a fife do what it do. The fife ain’t got but two whistles to it, high and low, you gots to catch somethin’ yourself. Then know how to know it… You gots to know how to know it.”

— Terry Hillman