Sid Hemphill (1876 – 1963) was an American

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

multi-instrumentalist and

bandleader A bandleader is the leader of a music group such as a rock or pop band or jazz quartet. The term is most commonly used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or ...

who played in his own string band mainly in Mississippi. He recorded for

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...

in 1942 and again in 1959. Born in

Panola County, Mississippi Panola County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, the population was 34,707. Its county seats are Sardis and Batesville. The county is located just east of the Mississippi Delta in the northern part of ...

, Hemphill was the son of a slave

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

player, crafted instruments, and was a blind musician. Trained as a multi-instrumentalist, he could effectively play fiddle,

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

, jaw harp,

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

, organ, quills, and the cane fife, while also penning songs. Hemphill and his string band, composed of Alex "Turpentine" Askew (guitar), Lucious Smith (banjo), and Will Head (fiddle), played a combination of

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

, and spirituals for both black and white audiences mainly in Northern Mississippi. The same group also identified as a fife and drums band, with music infused in European military drum tradition and African

polyrhythms Polyrhythm is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rhyth ...

talking drum The talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum from West Africa, whose pitch can be regulated to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech. It has two drumheads connected by leather tension cords, which allow the player to change the pitc ...

influences. According to blues writer Edward Komara, Hemphill's quill playing was highly syncopated and offered the closest connection to traditional African music.

Field Field may refer to: Expanses of open ground * Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes * Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport * Battlefield * Lawn, an area of mowed grass * Meadow, a grass ...

collector and

ethnomusicologist Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...

traveled to

Senatobia Senatobia is a city in, and the county seat of, Tate County, Mississippi, United States, and is the 16th largest municipality in the Memphis Metropolitan Area. The population was 8,165 at the 2010 census. Senatobia is the home of Northwest Miss ...

to seek out Hemphill after a local string bandleader described him as the "boar-hog musician of the hills”, also proclaiming him as "the best musician in the world". On August 15, 1942, Lomax recorded 22 songs and an interview with Hemphill and his group. Although the group identified as a string band, for the recordings they played fife and drums. Lomax recorded a second session with Hemphill when he revisited him in 1959. Music critic Amanda Petrusich noted in a review for ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...

'' that "Hemphill's work incorporates attributes of the Mississippi Hill Country’s better-known traditions (the droning guitar blues mastered by McDowell, R.L. Burnside, and Junior Kimbrough, and the fife-and-drum music practiced by Otha Turner, Napolian Strickland, and Hemphill himself)", which differs from the neighboring

Delta blues Delta blues is one of the earliest-known styles of blues. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, and is regarded as a regional variant of country blues. Guitar and harmonica are its dominant instruments; slide guitar is a hallmark of the s ...

. His best-known song "The Eighth of January" became the basis for

Johnny Horton John LaGale Horton (April 30, 1925 – November 5, 1960) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Initially performing traditional country, Horton later performed rockabilly songs. He is best known for a series of history-inspired narrat ...

's hit "

The Battle of New Orleans "The Battle of New Orleans" is a song written by Jimmy Driftwood. The song describes the Battle of New Orleans from the perspective of an American soldier; the song tells the tale of the battle with a light tone and provides a rather comical ver ...

". Hemphill died in 1963, having never commercially recorded any of his songs for release in his lifetime. Nonetheless, his two field sessions with Lomax were made more accessible by the release of the

compilation album A compilation album comprises Album#Tracks, tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one or several Performing arts#Performers, performers. If by one artist, then generally the tr ...

''The Devil's Dream'' in 2013. Other members of the Hemphill family also became musicians, including his daughter

Rosa Lee Hill Rosa Lee Hill (September 25, 1910 – October 22, 1968) was an American blues musician. She was born Rosa Lee Hemphill in Como, Mississippi, United States. Music career Hill played music that was in the tradition of north Mississippi, singing ac ...

, and his paternal granddaughter,

Jessie Mae Hemphill Jessie Mae Hemphill (October 18, 1923 – July 22, 2006) was an American electric guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist specializing in the North Mississippi hill country blues traditions of her family and regional heritage. Life and career Hemp ...

, a pioneering guitarist. Hemphill was honored with a marker on the

Mississippi Blues Trail The Mississippi Blues Trail was created by the Mississippi Blues Commission in 2006 to place interpretive markers at the most notable historical sites related to the birth, growth, and influence of the blues throughout (and in some cases beyond) t ...

in Senatobia.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemphill, Sid American blues musicians 1876 births 1963 deaths People from Panola County, Mississippi Blues musicians from Mississippi Mississippi Blues Trail Delta blues musicians