Otha Turner opened the concert playing a reed fife that probably sounded just fine on the west coast of Africa a few centuries ago; he sang Little Walter's "My Babe," a Chicago blues tune from the mid-1950's, and played a hymn.

Otha Turner - "Glory, Glory Hallelujah" (From Senegal to Senatobia, 1999)

In addition to the artists already mentioned, he has performed with artists as diverse as James Brown, Otha Turner, and Jennifer Warnes, among others.

His has been heavily influenced by artist such as Professor Longhair, Otis Spann, Junior Kimbrough and Otha Turner among others.

The rarest style on the bill, predating the blues, was the music of Otha Turner and the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band.

R. L. Boyce, the bass drummer, announced that the band's fifer and leader, Napolean Strickland, had the flu; so did Otha Turner, who leads a competing band.

Born near Como in the northern Mississippi Delta, his father introduced him to the music as a boy but it was Otha Turner that taught him how to play.

None of the three stars of tonight's show - Junior Kimbrough, Otha Turner and Jack Johnson - have done much recording or much traveling outside of Mississippi, and none of them play music for a living.