In the late 1960s and 1970s, scholars from nearby colleges made field recordings of Turner and his friends' music, as examples of local traditions, but did not release these.
Turner's Rising Star Fife and Drum Band (which consisted of friends and relatives) primarily played at farm parties.
Turner, along with bandmates Jessie Mae Hemphill and Abe Young, performed as the "Mississippi Fife and Drum Corps" in episode number 1509 of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood that aired on November 18, 1982.
This was followed by From Senegal to Senatobia in 1999, which combined bluesy fife and drum music with musicians credited as the "Afrossippi Allstars".
The title, Everybody Hollerin' Goat, refers to a tradition Turner began in the late 1950s of hosting Labor Day picnics.
[1] His daughter, Bernice Turner Pratcher, who had been living in a nursing home because of terminal breast cancer, died the same day, aged 48.