Following the Drums

African American Fife and Drum Music in Tennessee

John M. Shaw

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781496839565
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music History & Criticism

Following the Drums: African American Fife and Drum Music in Tennessee is an epic history of a little-known African American instrumental music form. John M. Shaw follows the music from its roots in West Africa and early American militia drumming to its prominence in African American communities during the time of Reconstruction, both as a rallying tool for political militancy and a community music for funerals, picnics, parades, and dances. Carefully documenting the music's early uses for commercial advertising and sports promotion, Shaw follows the strands of the music through the nadir of African American history during post-Reconstruction up to the form's rediscovery by musicologists and music researchers during the blues and folk revival of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although these researchers documented the music, and there were a handful of public performances of the music at festivals, the story has a sad conclusion. Fife and drum music ultimately died out in Tennessee during the early 1980s.Newspaper articles from the period and interviews with music researchers and participants reawaken this lost expression, and specific band leaders receive the spotlight they so long deserved. Following t he Drums is a journey through African American history and Tennessee history, with a fascinating form of music powering the story.

Chapter 1

“TO DRUM FOR THE FUN OF THE THING”

African American Drumming and Fife and Drum Music before and during the Civil War, 1776–1865

As other researchers have pointed out, the beginnings and subsequent history of Black fife and drum music are not well documented, to say the least. The general assumption is that its beginnings are the result of the similarity between certain flute and drum ensembles in West Africa and the early American military tradition of fifers and drummers. Eileen Southern associated the emergence of Black fifers and drummers with their contact with the military traditions in colonial America: “Militia Day, also known as Training or Muster Day, never failed to attract a large gathering of bystanders, including slaves. More than likely, many a black fifer “picked up” the skill of playing his instrument on these occasions. In the early years, all servants, including “Negars” and Indians, were compelled to undergo military training. Every company has at least one fifer (or trumpeter) and one drummer.”¹ Her views of a connection between early Black drumming in colonial or state militias and later fife and drum bands have been generally repeated by most scholars on the subject since, including Evans, Joiner, Lomax, and Vermilyea. But Lauren Joiner, who has written arguably the most in-depth attempt to account for the early origins of fife and drum music, also describes points of similarity with West African musical traditions: “In addition to these colonial roots, it is important to note that ensembles featuring different kinds of transverse flutes and drums existed in African traditional music. Paul Oliver recorded such a group of Mamprusi tribesmen in Ghana in the early 1970s for a recording entitled Savannah Syncopators. In other areas of Northern Ghana, similar ensembles still exist today such as jongo, a festival music native to the Kasena region.”²

Outside of the military tradition, Southern has documented how colonial and state authorities in the South took steps to forbid drums and drumming among people of African descent, particularly after the use of drums in revolts such as the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina.³ However, the rules do not seem to have been strictly enforced in matters related to the military or the militia, as Paul Alan Cimbala noted in his excellent thesis on slave musicians: “Slave musicians were also on hand for their masters’ militia musters and parades. Since colonial times there had been a tradition of black musicians providing tuneful cadence for Southern cavaliers. Colonel Patton of North Carolina, for example, enlisted his slave as a drummer during the Revolution, and in the June 30, 1822 issue of the Baton Rouge Republic the owner of a runaway identified his slave as a former army drummer who had served in the War of 1812.”⁴ Cimbala goes on to list many antebellum references to Black fifers and drummers in the South and, in a footnote, links this antebellum practice to the later Georgia fife and drum tradition, although he also notes the differences between them.⁵

In summary, it would seem that the military fife and drum tradition created a perfect storm. Here was an American musical tradition involving instruments that were extremely importance in many West African cultures; and this music was being used to accompany marching, another activity found in certain African rituals. As a result, Black musicians were eager to play fifes and drums, while white military commanders believed that Blacks excelled at these tasks.

EARLY NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS OF BLACK DRUMMERS

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Black drummers were almost always mentioned in early American newspapers, even in the South, in conjunction with military activities. One of the earliest accounts was from a Natchez newspaper called the Mississippi Free Trader, reprinting an article from the New Orleans Delta, regarding a drummer from the “Legion” named Dave Doody.⁶ While the “Legion” is not otherwise identified, a later article from Marysville, Ohio, regarding a New Orleans parade in 1856 commemorating the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 mentions the “Louisiana Legion” as well as a well-known Black drummer who had participated in the battle: “Leading one of the military bands was the great negro drummer Jordan—the same Jordan who beat the American Army to arms on the plain of Chalamette [sic] on that eventful day when English veterans turned their backs to the rifles of the militias of the south and west.”⁷ But a most remarkable article from an Alabama newspaper, the Tuskegee Republican, suggests that there were already emerging differences in white and Black drumming styles, and that at least initially, white Southerners enjoyed seeing and hearing Black drummers:

Last Saturday, we had the heaviest rain in this place that we have had for a month or six weeks, in consequence of which the regimental muster, that we were to have had, did not come off; but instead of it the negro drummer gave us a regular beat on his drum, which, for our part, we think infinitely superior to any muster we ever saw; and we think it would not be a bad plan, if the next Legislature would so alter and modify the law, as to have regular drumming on stated occasions, instead of the very irregular mustering that our officers regularly order. We don’t see but what it would answer just as good a purpose in the way of making soldiers of our citizens and giving them, besides, a taste for music and the fine arts, and costing nobody nothing; as we have no doubt plenty of negroes can be got to beat the drum just for the fun of the thing.⁸

The perception seems to have been that Blacks enjoyed drumming and were good at it. Certainly many Black military drummers were almost famous. An 1858 article in the Nashville Republican Banner lamented the passing of “Old Bob,” a Revolutionary War drummer who had been present at the battles of Eutaw Springs, Guilford Court House, and Brandywine. He was said to have been 107 years old when he died in Elbert County, Georgia.⁹ The movement of troops at the dawn of the Civil War brought more mention of legendary Black drummers, such as this account from the Mississippi Free Trader of Natchez:

The Mobile Advertiser, announcing the arrival in that city of the Greensboro Artillery Guards, has the following notice of a somewhat noted character: Their negro drummer must be mentioned, for he is almost as well known in the State as any white man. This sable votary of the “red planet Mars” is the identical “Old Lun” who “beat the hide” for Gen. Sam Duffy through the Creek wars and did the same for the Greensboro volunteers through the Mexican war. Like Old Jordan of New Orleans, who beat the reveille behind the breastworks of Chalmette, on the 8th of January 1815, and is now enlivening the state garrison at Fort Pike with his rat-tat-too, Old Lun is eager as a boy to be in any “fun,” as he calls “fighting,” that may be going on.¹⁰

Most of the earliest accounts seem to be of military drumming, without much mention of fife, but at the beginning of the Civil War, there begin to be mentions of both fifers and drummers, with specific tunes occasionally mentioned. From this account in a Virginia newspaper of a Black fife and drum band playing for the departure of Confederate troops in Jackson, Mississippi, it not only appears that the Confederate units often had Black musicians, but also that these musicians were not above a subtle musical dig at the whites: “For awhile the scene was very affecting, lovers and sweethearts took a long, fond kiss, reminding us of poor Jeannette and Jeannot, but just as our feelings were so wrought up, the negro drummers and fifers cruelly but ignorantly struck up something like ‘Jim Crack Corn, I don’t care,’ which of course soon dampened all our tender sympathies and emotions. These negroes seemed to have their sable sweethearts also mourn for them, for we observed that they were trying to shed a tear over the departure of their Dandy Jims.”¹¹

Thus, it is apparent that there is significant evidence for the use of Black fifers and drummers in Southern local and state militias, as well as in units of the Confederate army. What we can take away from these accounts is that Blacks in the South certainly had access to fifes and drums during the antebellum period.

EARLY ACCOUNTS OF BLACK DRUMMERS AND FIFE AND DRUM MUSIC IN TENNESSEE

There are also accounts of Black drummers and fife and drum bands in the state of Tennessee, although the earliest dates associated with the phenomenon seem to occur in much later articles, in which residents are recalling the early history of their communities. Perhaps the earliest reference to at least a Black encounter with fife and drum music is in Murfreesboro and Rutherford County, from a Daily News-Journal article that sadly is somewhat vague about times and dates:

The first Guinea negroes brought to Rutherford County were put up and sold on the public square. They were bought by Thomas O. Butler and Dr. John M. Watson. The negroes were christened Boson and Jenny. No matter how they were occupied, when a fife and drum began making martial music these negroes would quit their work and follow in the wake of the musicians until the music ceased. The first negroes direct from darkest Africa were bought by James Earthman, the great-grandfather of the present family of that name in this city.¹²

The lack of hard-and-fast dates in the article reduces its usefulness, but we can peg some dates with research into the names it mentions. From a page on Ancestry.com, we can see that James Earthman was born in Orange County, North Carolina, in 1780, and died in Rutherford County, Tennessee, in 1830, so the events in question probably had to predate 1830.¹³ Also online is a gravestone reference for Dr. John McLaren Watson, who was born in 1798 in North Carolina and died in 1866 in Rutherford County, Tennessee.¹⁴ Other dates of importance would be the founding of Rutherford County in 1803 and the suppression of the African slave trade by Congress in 1807. It seems likely that these incidents could be placed in the later years of the decade between 1810 and 1820 or so, although of course this must be a conjecture.

Similarly, from an 1887 article in the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle comes an account of an early Black bass drummer and fifer in the 1840s:

Sometime in the forties an Irish gentleman, William White, and his family arrived here on a trading boat. He rented a two-story frame house then standing on the present location of Elder’s Opera House, and opened business with about a dray load of merchandise.… Mr. White had a negro in his employ, known to all, at that time, as January Bradley, the bass drummer of the age.¹⁵ He was a large-boned, broadshouldered man, about six feet five inches high, and we believe he was as near in glory when beating his favorite musical instrument, as he ever got when leaving “these mundane shores.” January had, as an assistant, a colored man named Henry Rivers, who made the welkin ring with the fife. They were very important adjuncts to the military companies of that day. Henry Rivers was a worthy citizen, and lived until a few years ago. He said, and it was currently believed just prior to his death that he was a centenarian.¹⁶

The first reference to Black drummers in Memphis is in connection with a large parade of Memphis fire companies downtown in 1859. This is also of interest, as it is one of the few antebellum references to such drummers outside of a military context:

The president of the day of the No. 5, Invincible Fire Company was Samuel Richards, Marshal, J. B. Gotti; their uniform was red shirts, black pants, and firemen’s hats. The hosemen, or Shelby Reds, made a very fancy appearance; they wore red pants stuck in long boots, white shirts, and jockey caps; they had the name “Shelby Reds” on the blue tops of their boots. The engine, Invincible, was drawn by four black horses furnished by D. F. Wright. The hose carriage, Telegraph, was tastefully decked with wreaths and flowers, and followed by negro drummers and a banner.¹⁷

A year later, in 1860, the Clarksville Chronicle duly recorded the first mention of Black drummers in connection with political activity, a rally of the fading Whig Party, which it derisively referred to as the “Whangdoodles”: “Well the day came: Last Saturday morning was ushered in brightly and cheerfully, and nature seemed compassionately disposed for once to favor even the evil-doers. Everything about town, however, bore the customary aspect of summer quiet. Once in a while, the far-off boom of a single little cannon perhaps was heard, and a couple of solitary looking darkies beat a doleful rub-a-dub out of two drums. This certainly looked discouraging.”¹⁸

With the beginning of the Civil War, we encounter a reference to the arrival of prisoners in Nashville, turned over to a home guard that had Black drummers: “The Gazette states that a number of prisoners, who arrived in this city on the 19th, were delivered over to a company of Home Guards, and marching up the street, the negro drummers struck up the tune of the ever-popular ‘Dixie.’ That was the ‘unkindest cut of all.’”¹⁹

Quite apart from being another reference to Black drummers serving in the Confederate army, or the mention of a specific tune, is the fact that this article might explain the tendency of Blacks in rural fife and drum communities to mention only the drums, despite the presence of a ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• A Note on Sources
• Introduction: Black Fife and Drum Music and Previous Scholarship
• Chapter 1: “To Drum for the Fun of the Thing”: African American Drumming and Fife and Drum Music before and during the Civil War, 1776–1865
• Chapter 2: “The Inevitable Fife and Drum”: Fife and Drum Music, Benevolent Societies, and Black Political Organizing in Tennessee During Reconstruction, 1866–71
• Chapter 3: “These Things Must Have Their Day”: Fife and Drum Music, Benevolent Societies, and Black Political Organizing in Tennessee, 1872–77
• Chapter 4: “So Important a Part of the Machinery”: Black Fife and Drum Music in Tennessee During Redemption, 1878–92
• Chapter 5: “Nerve-Torturers and Wholesale Dispensers of Discord”: Black Fife and Drum Music in Tennessee During the Nadir and Segregation, 1893–1941
• Chapter 6: “Like a Muffled, Rumbling Heartbeat”: The Rediscovery and Disappearance of Black Fife and Drum Music in Tennessee, 1942–84
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author