Othar Turner – Memphis Flyer

When lung cancer claimed the life of drummer, guitarist, and singer/songwriter R.L. Boyce on November 9th, it left a gaping void in the heart of the North Mississippi blues. Indeed, over the course of his 68 years on earth, he emerged as one of our most powerful voices in that unique tradition, embodying its rhythms and harmonies with his very being.

When he was named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) earlier this year, it only confirmed what many in the Mid-South already knew: that he was an integral player in the North Mississippi scene, having had a hand in some of its most distinctive music since at least the 1970s.

That was made clear soon after he passed away, when Dr. David Evans, who headed up the University of Memphis’ ethnomusicology program for many years, posted an image of a 15-year-old Boyce on social media.

R.L. Boyce (second from left) playing snare with Napoleon Strickland (left) in 1970. (Credit: David Evans)

Evans wrote that this image “might be the very first photo taken of him, at least in a musical setting,” adding that the occasion was a Labor Day weekend picnic at L. P. Buford’s place east of Senatobia, MS, on Sept. 4, 1970. “R. L., then aged 15, plays the snare drum,” wrote Evans, “with an unidentified bass drum player and Napoleon Strickland playing fife.”

His penchant for drums put him at the center of the vivid musical culture of North Mississippi for the decades that followed, as he played drum set for Jesse Mae Hemphill in the 1980s and ’90s, then bass drum and snare with fife master Othar Turner (whose wife Ada was R.L.’s relative).

He continued as part of the Turner drum corps for years, but also took to the guitar as this century dawned, and in recent years he was known primarily for his self-accompanied singing, releasing the albums Ain’t the Man’s Alright (Sutro Park, 2013), Roll and Tumble (Waxploitation Records, 2017), Rattlesnake Boogie (Waxploitation, 2018), and Ain’t Gonna Play Too Long (Waxploitation, 2018) under his own name, as well as being included on this year’s compilation Tell Everybody! on Easy Eye Sound.

Shanquisa Birge Boyce, Boyce’s daughter, remembers his guitar playing as an integral part of her life. “He had jobs as I was growing up, but music’s always been his passion,” she says. “Then, as he started getting older and stopped working, he went full time with his music.”

The music was something Boyce lived and breathed, according to Shanquisa. Even as he was nominated for Grammy Awards, Blues Music Awards, or named a National Heritage Fellow, it was the music that mattered most to him. “He was really excited [by such recognition] but the only thing he really wanted to do was play blues guitar,” she recalls. “If he didn’t make enough money, or would get down or sad or something, he’d pick up his guitar to bring up his spirits.”

R.L. Boyce with daughter Shanquisa. (Credit: Yancey Allison)

That took the form of many jam sessions in and around his home in Como, Mississippi. “There was always music in the yard,” says Shanquisa. “He’d start up in the yard and play day and night.”

Such festivities created many beloved memories for Boyce’s family over the years, even as his playing remains indelibly etched into the minds of the fans who witnessed his shows. This weekend his family will pay their respects — joined by the Como community and many the music lovers whose hearts he touched. Many around the world will pull out their R.L. Boyce albums to revisit his finely-wrought, rhythmic blues, and, as Shanquisa notes, that’s just what Boyce would have wanted. “I think he would like to be remembered as a Mississippi Blues Man.”

R.L. Boyce funeral service schedule details
Friday, November 17th
Visitation, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Felix Cauthen Funeral Home
13653 MS-HWY 4
Senatobia, MS, 38668
662 562 8667

Saturday, November 18th
Visitation, 1 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.
Celebration of Life, 2:30 p.m.
Hunter Chapel MB Church
1654 Hunter Chapel Road
Como MS, 38619

Donations for flowers and other expenses can be made to Boyce’s GoFundMe page.

Dr. William Ferris with his camera in Mississippi in the 1970s.

In the early 1970s, William Ferris was a graduate student studying folklore at the University of Pennsylvania. His specialty was studying the rich musical culture of North Mississippi. “I was doing field recordings and photography, and coming back and presenting that. I felt I couldn’t communicate the full power of the church services and juke joints I was working in. Film would be the best way to do that. No one there was willing to help me, at the film school. So I got a little super 8 camera and began to shoot footage and do wild sound on a reel-to-reel recorder. I put together these really basic, early films, which in many ways are the best things I ever did. It’s very visceral, powerful material. I brought those back, and people were just blown away by them.”

Ferris was particularly interested in the proto-blues fife and drum music tradition kept alive in Gravel Springs, Mississippi, by Othar Turner. “I was trying to finish a film on Othar Turner that I had shot, and David Evans had done the sound. Judy Peiser was working at public television in Mississippi, and she interviewed me. I told her about the fife and drum film, and she said she would like to edit it. That led to the creation of the Center for Southern Folklore in 1972, and to a long history of working on films. I would spend my summers in Memphis when I was teaching at Yale. We would work on films and other projects. I made a lot of wonderful friends that I’ve been close to ever since.”

Dr. Ferris, with the help of Peiser and others, acquired progressively better equipment and, over the years, created a series of short documentaries immortalizing the artists and traditions of the Mississippi Delta. His successful academic career would go on to include a stint as the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Currently, he is a Senior Associate Director Emeritus at the Center for Study of the American South at the University of South Carolina, Chapel Hill. The Center for Southern Folklore, which he and Peiser founded, became a beloved institution in Memphis. “The Center has made a mark, and continues to make a mark with its festivals and exhibits. Judy Peiser has continued it. She’s an anchor for all this work and Memphis, and really a national treasure.”

On Friday, May 17th, Indie Memphis will present “Voices of Mississippi,” a collection of Ferris’ now-classic short documentaries, beginning with “Gravel Springs Fife and Drum.” “Ray Lum: Mule Trader” introduces us to the title character, who Ferris calls “an amazing raconteur.” Ferris recorded the auctioneer’s stories and tall tales in film, and with an accompanying book and soundtrack. “There are two soundtracks. You can hear the wild sound, and his voice. I don’t think that had ever been done before. All of that was published and produced through the Center. I think it was really ahead of its time in terms of media and film.”

“Four Women Artists” documents writer Eudora Welty, quilter Picolia Warner, needleworker Ethel Mohamed and painter Theora Hamblett “Bottle Up and Go” records a Loman, Mississippi, musician demonstrating “one strand on the wall,” a precursor to the slide guitar that makes an instrument out of a house. “It’s one of the earliest instruments that every blues singer learned on as a child, because it was free,” says Ferris. “He also did bottle blowing. Both of those are sounds that have deep roots in Africa and are the roots of the blues.”

Dr. Ferris will bring along some of his Memphis-based collaborators and sign the Grammy-inning box set of his life’s work. He says that for him, this Memphis screening is like a homecoming.“To me, Memphis is the undiscovered bohemian culture,” he says. “You have black and white, rural and folk voices coming out of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee, meeting this formally educated group of musicians and artists like Sid Selvidge, William Eggleston. Music and photography was a big part of the scene. The photography, because of Eggleston and Tav Falco and Ernest Withers, makes Memphis unique. It just has so many pieces that you don’t find in the French Quarter in New Orleans, where William Faulkner went to write. You have Julian Hohenberg, this very wealthy cotton broker whose heart is in music. He was involved in the music scene for many, many years. It’s the escape valve for people who love the arts. It’s really funky and countercultural. Everything they couldn’t do in these little towns and rural areas, they do in Memphis — and they do it with a passion.”

“Voices of Mississippi” will screen at 6 PM on Friday, May 17 at the Crosstown Theater. RSVP for a free ticket at the Indie Memphis website.