History Is Lunch: John M. Shaw, “The South’s Black Fife and Drum Tradition”

The predominantly rural, instrumental fife and drum tradition generally consists of a musician blowing a handmade bamboo fife, another playing the bass drum, and a third on snare drum. “Although writers tend to use the term ‘fife and drum band,’ it is more common to hear local residents refer to ‘the drums,’ a ‘drum band,’ or ‘drum and fife,’ to emphasize the importance of the drums,” said Shaw, author of the new book Following the Drums: African American Fife and Drum Music in Tennessee. “This was among the earliest secular forms of Black music after the Civil War, and it became a soundtrack of Black America during Reconstruction.”

History Is Lunch is sponsored by the John and Lucy Shackelford Charitable Fund of the Community Foundation for Mississippi. The hour-long programs are held in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. MDAH livestreams videos of the program at noon on Wednesdays on their Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/MDAHOfficial/ and then later posts the video to their YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/MDAHVideo.