Bernice Turner Pratcher

Originally published in 50 Miles of Elbow Room issue #2 in 2002, text by Adam Lore

Otha Turner & Bernice Turner Pratcher, photographer unknown

Back in the '60s it was unusual for a young woman to play in fife-and-drum bands, but that wasn't a concern of Bernice Turner Pratcher (1954-2003). One of Otha Turner's daughters, she seems to have inherited his can-do attitude and has contributed beats and vocals to the fife-and-drum bands ever since she was in her early teens. For many years her song has honored God and enriched her community.

Ms. Turner Pratcher didn't have time to speak with me during my July 2001 visit, but kindly did a phone interview a couple weeks later, which is presented here nearly verbatim. Gracious and open, she made this nervous interviewer feel right at home with just one "darlin'."

Do you remember the first time that you heard the fife-and-drum music?

Oh, no. (laughs) No I don't, because my mom was telling us, my dad been playing pretty much ever since he was about 13. So the first time I heard it, I'm sure I was a baby, you know, one or two years old, so I don't remember that. I think the first time I can remember that I heard it, I was probably about seven, seven or eight, somewhere in there. We went to...a picnic is what they call it. It was kind of like a festival. We went to a picnic at some friend's, and then every year thereafter they would have it starting in June up into September. Different people would have picnics and my mom would take us. She wouldn't take us to all of 'em, but she would pick out a couple. They had their favorites and they would take us over for a couple hours. And we would stand and watch the people play the drums and eat fresh barbecue and snowballs and hot dogs and whatever. Stuff like that.

When did you start playing?

I think I was about 13.

What did you like about the music that made you want to start playing?

It was different. Back then when you turned on the radio or the TV you didn't hear this type of fife-and-drum music. You would hear maybe like in a school band, the marching band, the music and stuff. They play like rock, rap, or whatever. But you didn't hear folklore fife-and-drum music, which is handed down from one generation to another one. My daddy played what he heard during his childhood and then he brought it on down to us, so we played what we heard during our childhood, which is the same thing, you know. And some of it they might change it around a little bit and add a guitar or a keyboard or a bell or sometimes a saxophone or whatever they want to add to it. I say the guitar because we did a few songs with the North Mississippi All-Stars, Luther Dickinson and them. He had sit in with a couple our songs, and he'll do the guitar part, which when you bring it all together is real pretty. So you can dress it up or you can dress it down. You can go with two drums and a fife, three drums and a fife, four drums and a fife, guitar, piano, whatever you want to add to that.

And then you had the record where you added the African musicians (From Senegal to Senatobia).

That's what I'm saying: you can dress it up or you can dress it down - it still sounds good. And it's different, it's very different. So that's why I fell in love with it. And plus I was at that time the only female, because when I was 13 years old there wasn't any more girls playing drums.

That was also one of my questions, if the bands always had both men and women, because I read that Jessie Mae Hemphill talked about how she was in a fife-and-drum band that was all female.

I don't know anything about that. I've never heard of it. From the time I knew Miss Jessie Mae, she played guitar. She played a little bit of snare drum, marching fife-and-drum, with my dad, because I think they went somewhere on tour - my dad, Mr. Lonnie Young, and somebody - and Miss Jessie Mae played a couple pieces with them because she was saying she could play the drum, so they let her do a couple pieces with them. But I've always heard her playing the guitar. I don't know anything about this all-girl band. It could've been, years and years ago, but I never seed it and I never heard of it around here.

In general do you think the picnics have changed over the years?

Yeah, they've changed music-wise and they have changed...how would I say people? Because, like when I was a child and we were going to picnics, it was all black. And now it's integrated, anybody can come. Anybody could come back then, but back then it wasn't integrated. Black and white people didn't do things together.

Do you remember when that started to change?

I would say in the '70s, like '72, '73, somewhere in there. There wasn't that many people coming then, but it was David Evans, Bill Ferris, and Alan Lomax, and people like that would come to record and video picnics and stuff. And then they would go back and tell some of their friends what a good time they had and then maybe the next time they go to do something it would be seven or eight of them. And they would have such a good time, it just started growing. That's what happened at my daddy's: we started mixing up with meeting this one and that one, and they said, "Can I come?" "Sure, anybody can come!" So they would come and bring a friend. Then the next year they would tell somebody else, they would come and bring a friend, you know, and that's how it got started. In the early '80s it was maybe ten, but in the '90s, wow! They started coming out of the woodwork! (laughs) The last three or four years it's been maybe half-and-half, I would say. And I think it's great, I really do.

Bernice Turner Pratcher, RL Boyce, Otha Turner, & EP Burton, photographer unknown

When I spoke to you at the picnic last year, you mentioned that you saw the picnic as something positive you can do for the community. Could you talk about that a little bit?

The reason I say I think it's positive for the community, everybody in the community around here, they sort of look forward to the picnic, and they look forward to my daddy. And they're like, you know, if Mr. Turner don't have his annual picnic the last of August, then it's like the summer's not over, it's not ending, because that's usually about the time the picnics and things end, and he always pretty much as the last one. So we pretty much have it and everybody in the community, if they don't come by Friday afternoon, Friday night, they come by Saturday afternoon, Saturday night. And they watch the drummers and the kids, you know, they play, and then they get goat 'cause he's about the only person from around here that kills goat and barbecues goat. So they kind of look forward to it, you know, because that's about the only time you have goat, from August then you don't have it over to the next August. So they look forward to the goat killing and the barbecue and whatever we have and meeting people from everywhere.

That's one of the things your father spoke about with me, how sometimes he thinks he wants to quit and everybody tells him, "No! You can't quit!"

(laughs) That's what they tell me. I said I gotta quit. I'll have to leave this alone because it's getting too stressful for me. I was diagnosed with cancer three years ago. I'm not supposed to be stressed or worried. With the band, you have people calling me, can they come over here, can they come over here, I can't pay that, can't you do any better than that, can I just meet you for 15 minutes, you know. I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. (laughs) Any time you deal with people it's stressful. It really is. Even the picnic, you kinda want to smile and greet everybody. They don't really know what a day you done had before this, trying to go from point A to point B. ...

Something, everything goes on. We just thank the Lord that we made it through it and go on. That's all we can do. But I told 'em, I think I'm gonna have to cut 'em loose because I'm doin' good, I praise the Lord, but I'm really turning my life over to God and I want to live for Him. Then everybody says you don't know who you're touching through your music. Some people never hear a gospel song if they didn't come to a festival or whatever. I said that's true. And then we do bars or whatever, some people never would hear this if they didn't come to hear y'all at the bar or whatever. I say that's true. They tell me, well, Jesus went through the synagogue and went through everywhere preaching the Gospel, he never went to church. I say that's true, too. You can bring people to Jesus everywhere and it doesn't have to be just in a church or a church setting. I said well that's something to think about, too. So I pray and ask God every day to let me be a blessing to somebody and I asked Him if this is not what He wants me to do, to show me in some form where I should quit. So I guess I should stay with it, I don't know. He hasn't showed me! (laughs) I guess it's OK, you know.

Like I say, I just don't want to miss my blessing doing the wrong thing. I really don't. Because He has brought me too far. I went through my chemo just fine, I praise the Lord, and all this medicine. I only have to take one pill a day now, thank the Lord. And I'm doing so good, I just can't turn my back on Jesus for nothin'. I can't do that. So if it ends up, to put the drums in the closet and not bring 'em out, then that's what I have to do. Because I had said one time if anything ever happened to Dad or he ever passed on that I would quit anyway. And then my boys started playing and they were like, "Well, Mama, we can carry it on." Young people are not gonna do like an...aged person would do. They got too much on their minds. They don't take anything serious. So that's the problem I'm having now.

Andre did seem pretty earnest about wanting to carry on the tradition when I spoke to him about it.

They're like - OK. I say, "We're going to California in three weeks," everybody wanna go. Everybody wanna practice, everybody wanna go. I can say, "We're going to Clarksdale in two weeks," nobody wanna go. See what I'm sayin'? "Why we gotta practice when we go to Clarksdale? We can just play what we know in Clarksdale!" But I can say, "We're going to New York and we need to learn," and hey - we're ready. That's the way they are. ... They've still got a child's mind. To me, I don't care if I'm playing in downtown Como, I want to do my best. Even if I'm out here in my front yard, my mama always taught me if I'm gonna be a broom sweeper, to be the best. And that's what I try to instill in them: whatever you do, do your best. Give it your best, 'cause you never know who's out there. You could be sitting in the back of the auditorium and you say, "Hey, I like that. I'm gonna see if I can get them to come to New Jersey," or wherever you live. And then, hey, we're goin' just by you bein there and they bein' good! Or you could say, "Well dawg, I wouldn't hire them to play at a dogfight!" You know? You never know. So I just try to tell everybody, whatever you do, give it your best.

That reminds me of talking to your father, how he says that everybody has to try. You can't do it if you don't try.

You can't! You never know what you can do if you don't try. You didn't know you could talk to me if you didn't call me, so you tried, right? So that's what I tell 'em: you gotta try. You never know. And if you don't try, you never will know. Later you say, "Hey, I coulda did that!" It done passed you by now.

That's what happened to me when I was growing up: I said, "Hey, I like that! I can do that!" So I picked up the drums and I tried. And I tried, you know, a couple times, and Daddy, when I would come to the different picnics where he was playing, he would always put me up in the back of the truck and he would tell 'em, "My daughter's gonna play this piece." And then they would come around the truck. I learned on the big drum, the bass drum, and I would play. He would make me play about five minutes, something like that, because once you first start playing your arm gets tired real quick 'til you get used to it.

So he would let me play a piece, every time I would go wherever he was. I kept trying, kept trying, 'til I got good at it. I'm like, "Hey, I'm ready now!" (laughs) But he wouldn't let me play at too many picnics 'cause he couldn't watch me. There's so many guys and stuff there. You know how old people are - they gotta keep an eye on you, especially when you're growin' up. So he wouldn't take me to too many picnics, but when we started traveling to the different festivals and things, he would take me. So then I started going. And here I am!

Bernice Turner Pratcher, RL Boyce, Otha Turner, & Aubrey "Bill" Turner, photo by Sheryl Stewart

Is there anything else that people need to know about the music?

All the music is played by ear. I think they should know that. None of the people read. Everybody plays by ear.

There's really not an age requirement. If you're big enough to hold it, then you can learn how to play.

It's played anywhere. It's not just played in Senatobia and it's not just played at festivals. Fife-and-drum can be played at a wedding, at a birthday party, any type of gathering you want to have, it can be played. Because a lot of people think it should be played at a certain type of year, certain places, but it can be played any time of year, anywhere you wanna. Anywhere you want the fife-and-drum to come or to be a part of your event, they can do it.

2019 postscript: Some clips of a young Bernice Turner are included in this fine short film, Music of the North Mississippi Hill Country (source of the image below).