Hoyt Ming

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Hoyt Ming (October 6, 1902 – April 28, 1985) was an American old-time fiddler from Mississippi. He married Rozelle Ming (April 25, 1907 – September 29, 1983), and they performed together for the rest of Hoyt’s life.

They played with the Pep Steppers, a family band from Tupelo. Hoyt played fiddle, Rozelle on guitar, and Hoyt’s brother Troy on mandolin. Sometimes they were billed as Floyd Ming and the Pep Steppers.

In 1928 they recorded for Ralph Peer and RCA Victor at the Peabody Hotel. Their best-known song was Indian War Whoop, later included in the Anthology of American Folk Music. The session also produced White Mule, Old Red, and Tupelo Blues, with A. D. Coggins doing the set calling.

Before recording, they played at fiddlers’ contests, county fairs, political rallies, rural picnics, and sometimes dances. They disliked the drinking at dances and stopped playing dances when they had young children. They performed at local dances and fairs until about 1957 when Hoyt stopped playing.

Interest in the band revived in the 1970s. They performed at the National Folk Festival at Wolf Trap Farm near Washington, D.C. in 1973, where they recorded the album New Hot Times, and at the 1974 Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife. They also appeared in the film Ode to Billy Joe.

Hoyt was mainly a potato farmer, selling potato plants to other farmers and farming cooperatives, especially in spring and early summer through small ads in newspapers. He and Rozelle once counted and bunched 30,000 plants in a day.

Hoyt learned to fiddle at about age 15 in Choctaw County near Ackerman, Mississippi. His brothers also played—Troy on mandolin and Ethel on guitar. By 1924 Hoyt moved to Lee County, where he met Rozelle Young, a multi-talented musician who joined the band on guitar.

The tune Indian War Whoop was used in the 2023 Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon, in a wedding dance scene where Tupelo Blues is played.