Give My Poor Heart Ease : Mississippi Delta Bluesmen * William Ferris *

William R. Ferris, a widely recognized leader in Southern studies, African American music, and folklore, is the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the senior associate director of UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South. He is also adjunct professor in the curriculum on folklore.

The former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ferris has conducted thousands of interviews with musicians ranging from the famous (B.B. King) to the unrecognized (Parchman Penitentiary inmates working in the fields).

He has written or edited 10 books and created 15 documentary films. He co-edited the massive “Encyclopedia of Southern Culture” (UNC Press, 1989), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His other books include: “Mule Trader: Ray Lum’s Tales of Horses, Mules and Men” (1992), “Local Color” (1982, 1992), “Images of the South: Visits with Eudora Welty and Walker Evans” (1978), “Mississippi Black Folklore: A Research Bibliography and Discography” (1971) and “Blues from the Delta” (1970, 1978, 1988). His most recent book “Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues” (2009) was published by the University of North Carolina Press. Ferris is currently working on a new book, "The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists,” due out from UNC Press in August 2013.

Bill Ferris’ films include “Mississippi Blues” (1983), which was featured at the Cannes Film Festival. He has produced numerous sound recordings and hosted “Highway 61,” a weekly blues program on Mississippi Public Radio for nearly a decade. He also has published his own poetry and short stories.

A native of Vicksburg, Miss., Ferris was the founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, where he taught for 18 years. He also taught at Yale University and Jackson State University. A graduate of Davidson College, he received a Ph.D. in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania (1969).

Guardons

Ferris has won many prestigious honors, including the Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities, the American Library Association’s Dartmouth Medal, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Lifetime Achievement Award, and the W.C. Handy Blues Award. In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine named him among the Top Ten Professors in the United States. He is a Fellow of the American Folklore Society.

           

A 1975 account of the blues experience through the recollections and performances of B.B. King, James "Son" Thomas, Shelby "Poppa Jazz" Brown, James "Blood" Shelby, Cleveland "Broom Man" Jones, and inmates from Parchman prison, a barber from Clarkesdale, a salesman from Beale Street, and others.

Give My Poor Heart Ease is one of a series of films made in Mississippi in the mid 1970s by William Ferris and the Center for Southern Folklore and produced in association with Howard Sayre Weaver. This field work is the basis for Ferris's 2009 book Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues.

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Give My Poor Heart Ease: Film Facts

Featuring: Riley "B. B." King, James "Son" Thomas, Shelby "Poppa Jazz" Brown, James "Blood" Shelby, Cleveland "Broom Man" Jones

Copyright: 1975, William Ferris, Yale University

Filmmaker(s): Bill Ferris 

Produced by: Yale University Media Design Studio with the Center for Southern Folklore

Cinematography: Dale Lindquist

Editing: Dale Lindquist, William Ferris

Sound: Robert Slattery

Acknowledgements: Production assistant: Sara Miller. "Why I Sing The Blues" used with permission of B.B. King, Dave Clark, A.B.C. Dunhill Music -- Sounds of Lucille Inc., A.B.C. Dunhill Records. "The Thrill is Gone" used with permission of: B.B. King, Arthur Benson, E. Dale Petite, Grosvenor House Music. Produced in Association with Howard Sayre Weaver. Our thanks to: B.B. King, James "Son" Thomas, Shelby "Poppa Jazz" Brown, James "Blood" Shelby, Cleveland "Broom Man" Jones, Parchman Inmates (Camp B), Joe Louis, Joe Cooper, Wade Walton, Robert Taylor, James Shaw, Ben Gooch, Yale University Audio Visual Staff. 

Funding: With support from: Ford Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; Edward W. Hazen Foundation 

21 minutes, Color; Original format: 16mm, 1975

Video By :  Aliendrome  , Thanks!