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Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, folklorist William Ferris toured his home state of Mississippi, documenting the voices of African Americans as they spoke about and performed the diverse musical traditions that form the authentic roots of the blues. Now, Give My Poor Heart Ease puts front and center a searing selection of the artistically and emotionally rich voices from this invaluable documentary record. Illustrated with Ferris's photographs of the musicians and their communities and including a CD of original music, the book features more than twenty interviews relating frank, dramatic, and engaging narratives about black life and blues music in the heart of the American South.

Here are the stories of artists who have long memories and speak eloquently about their lives, blues musicians who represent a wide range of musical traditions—from one-strand instruments, bottle-blowing, and banjo to spirituals, hymns, and prison work chants. Celebrities such as B. B. King and Willie Dixon, along with performers known best in their neighborhoods, express the full range of human and artistic experience—joyful and gritty, raw and painful.

In an autobiographical introduction, Ferris reflects on how he fell in love with the vibrant musical culture that was all around him but was considered off limits to a white Mississippian during a troubled era. This magnificent volume illuminates blues music, the broader African American experience, and indeed the history and culture of America itself.
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Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, folklorist William Ferris toured his home state of Mississippi, documenting the voices of African Americans as they spoke about and performed the diverse musical traditions that form the authentic roots of the blues. Now, Give My Poor Heart Ease puts front and center a searing selection of the artistically and emotionally rich voices from this invaluable documentary record. Illustrated with Ferris's photographs of the musicians and their communities and including a CD of original music, the book features more than twenty interviews relating frank, dramatic, and engaging narratives about black life and blues music in the heart of the American South.

Here are the stories of artists who have long memories and speak eloquently about their lives, blues musicians who represent a wide range of musical traditions—from one-strand instruments, bottle-blowing, and banjo to spirituals, hymns, and prison work chants. Celebrities such as B. B. King and Willie Dixon, along with performers known best in their neighborhoods, express the full range of human and artistic experience—joyful and gritty, raw and painful.

In an autobiographical introduction, Ferris reflects on how he fell in love with the vibrant musical culture that was all around him but was considered off limits to a white Mississippian during a troubled era. This magnificent volume illuminates blues music, the broader African American experience, and indeed the history and culture of America itself.
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Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues

Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues

by William Ferris
Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues
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Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues

Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues

by William Ferris

Overview

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, folklorist William Ferris toured his home state of Mississippi, documenting the voices of African Americans as they spoke about and performed the diverse musical traditions that form the authentic roots of the blues. Now, Give My Poor Heart Ease puts front and center a searing selection of the artistically and emotionally rich voices from this invaluable documentary record. Illustrated with Ferris's photographs of the musicians and their communities and including a CD of original music, the book features more than twenty interviews relating frank, dramatic, and engaging narratives about black life and blues music in the heart of the American South.

Here are the stories of artists who have long memories and speak eloquently about their lives, blues musicians who represent a wide range of musical traditions—from one-strand instruments, bottle-blowing, and banjo to spirituals, hymns, and prison work chants. Celebrities such as B. B. King and Willie Dixon, along with performers known best in their neighborhoods, express the full range of human and artistic experience—joyful and gritty, raw and painful.

In an autobiographical introduction, Ferris reflects on how he fell in love with the vibrant musical culture that was all around him but was considered off limits to a white Mississippian during a troubled era. This magnificent volume illuminates blues music, the broader African American experience, and indeed the history and culture of America itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781469628875
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 02/15/2016
Series: H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman Series
Edition description: Includes a CD of original music
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 7.90(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

William Ferris is Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History and senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ferris coedited the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture and is the author of Blues from the Delta. Rolling Stone magazine has named him among the top ten professors in the United States. In 2010, Ferris received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

I reveled in these stories.—Toni Morrison

These voices express the blues in a deep and truthful way. They touched my heart.—B. B. King

Blues and jazz are America's most treasured gifts to the world. These powerful stories bring us face to face with the blues and remind us that the music was used to survive in the face of adversity and terror.—Quincy Jones

I have only begun to dig into this trove of American culture, and I have already listened to 'Jaybird in the Air' about a hundred times. It is the greatest song of the Trickster I've ever heard. This book, these films, and this music are filled with the history of both blues and American music. These powerful voices use music to rise above and to survive tragedy, and their lives are an inspiration.—T Bone Burnett

Like Bill Ferris, I grew up in Mississippi. My life is continually shaped by the blues. This book captures those rich voices so well.—Morgan Freeman

These stories and photographs evoke memories of my childhood and a world gone by but still with us—the blues are now and forever.—William Christenberry, artist

This book is indispensable for anyone who cares to know the roots of Mississippi blues music. William Ferris interviewed dozens of people who spoke about their lives, their music, both secular and non-secular. They talked about field songs, prison chants, hymns and spirituals they sang in church. Some of these interviews are painful to read, but like singing the blues they make the pains bearable, and sometimes even comic. Give My Poor Heart Ease includes much more than simply blues music; it covers a wide spectrum of African American and American experience in a place that just happens to be in Mississippi.—Ernest J. Gaines, author of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Gathering of Old Men, and A Lesson Before Dying

A powerful book that presents a deep and probing look at music, culture, and Mississippi at particularly important moments in history. The stories told here work on multiple levels, as biographical context for creativity and artistic power, but also as literary expressions of the highest order.—Tom Rankin, director of the Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University

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