Since the 1960s, folklorist and educator Dr. William Ferris has been documenting the music and stories of the American South. In 2019, Atlanta-based record label Dust-to-Digital released Voices of Mississippi, a boxset collection of some of Ferris’ incredible recordings of singers and storytellers he had documented over the last four decades.
Voices of Mississippi went on to win two Grammy awards and has since inspired a live multi-media performance that will make a special appearance at the Savannah Music Festival.
Voices of Mississippi is hosted by Ferris, and besides presentations of his photographs, films, and audio recordings, will feature live performances from a younger generation of blues musicians, all of whom are related to artists Ferris worked with in the past. Cedric Burnside is an acclaimed bluesman who is the grandson of blues legend R.L. Burnside. Shardé Thomas continues the longstanding fife and drum tradition practiced by her grandfather Othar Turner, founder of the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band. Luther and Cody Dickinson of the popular North Mississippi Allstars are the sons of Memphis music legend Jim Dickinson.
Having all of these artists on stage highlights how family legacy is a natural and important part of the Voices of Mississippi story.
Credit: Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal
Credit: Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal
“It goes back to the hymn, ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken.’,” said Ferris in an interview over the phone with the sonorous chirping of birds heard in the background. “The answer is,’ Yes, it will be unbroken.’ I find as a folklorist that stories and music are a way of binding the generations over time...This boxset which inspired the concert is a way of underscoring the continuity of families from all backgrounds and how the worlds of music and storytelling gives you a sense of who you are in terms of your reach, as well as where you’re headed in the future. While it’s easy to say that, you really feel it in the concert in a very emotional way.”
Ferris began his lifelong pursuit documenting the South when he was a child growing up on a farm in Mississippi. When Ferris was 5-years-old, a family friend would take him the first Sunday of every month to a small Black church for sermons where he soaked in all of the hymns and spirituals.
“As I grew older I realized that there were no hymnals in the church. To preserve that music and the memory of the families I started recording the services, and photographing and later filming. One of my first photographs I ever took was of a baptism the church had in a little bayou near the church. I took it because I thought it was beautiful, but I was documenting that church and a very important part of that cycle of life. That was the beginning. I was quite young and didn’t know that that would lead to a career as a folklorist and a teacher, but it all came out in a very organic way.”
Credit: Photo provided
Credit: Photo provided
Ferris followed in the footsteps of fellow musicologists like Alan Lomax who recorded and preserved rare folk music for the Library of Congress, and Harry Smith whose Smithsonian Anthology of American Folk Music was a major inspiration for musicians like Bob Dylan and Jerry Garcia. Ferris feels blessed to have personally known both men. Ferris was introduced to Smith when Alan Ginsburg brought him along on a speaking trip to the University if Mississippi where Ferris taught. And Lomax, whom Ferris looked up to, eventually became a mentor and father figure to him.
“When I was an undergraduate at Davidson College I’d been recording music and stories just because I loved them and wanted to somehow preserve them,” recalled Ferris. “I stumbled on a series of recordings that Alan Lomax had done for the Library of Congress. That was when a light went off. I really saw that as an affirmation of my own work that no one seemed to think had value, including my parents who sort of humored me.”
Since then Ferris has produced 10 books, 15 documentary films, and numerous recordings and photographs. He is now widely recognized as a leader in the field of Southern studies, African- American music and folklore, and is credited for creating the Center for Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.
“When I started this there was no field of study called Southern studies,’ said Ferris. “I was just putting it together in a haphazard way by reading and interviewing people that I admired and trying to figure out what it was I was trying to do. Now there is a field that you can get BA, MA, and PhDs at University of North Carolina, University of Mississippi, and other schools in the South.”
The Voices of Mississippi program will be followed by a screening of documentary selections and a Q&A with Ferris and Lance Ledbetter of Dust-to Digital.
Credit: file photo- Wikipedia
Credit: file photo- Wikipedia
Ferris has documented and studied areas all over the South and believes that there is still rich veins of history and culture to mine, but there is something special about the voices of Mississippi that comes across in his boxset.
“In some ways I think Mississippi is distinctive in that if you look at both music and literature that state has far excelled in terms of the numbers of people there, the power of those worlds,” said Ferris. “You have the father of country music Jimmy Rogers, the king of rock and roll Elvis Presley, the king of blues B.B. King.”
“You have an amazing array of quite important artists in the field of music and literature and that tradition continues today with rap and hip hop and country music. The well is deep and it continues to flow. The Voices of Mississippi is like a dipstick for that moment.”
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Voices of Mississippi combines stories, photos, film, and music to share the Southern experience
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