Oct 31, 2009 — See National Public Radio's "All Things Considered"
William Ferris grew up in western Mississippi, just outside Vicksburg. As a young man, he listened to gospel and blues music, sacred and secular songs sung by the black workers on his family's farm. The music spoke to him.
"We danced to it and listened to it on WLAC Radio at night," Ferris, a historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told NPR's Guy Raz. "It was my preferred music, along with rock 'n' roll. And they were closely linked."
During college and graduate school, Ferris returned to the South as often as he could. By then, he had become deeply interested in recording and preserving Mississippi blues. Ferris drove his Chevrolet Nova across Mississippi, up and down Highway 61 — a road known as "The Blues Highway." Along the way, he stopped at churches and juke joints and penitentiaries to make field recordings.
"The music that has flowed up Highway 61 is truly historic," Ferris said.
His most recent book, Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues, is a compilation of short memoirs of the musicians he recorded. It's been a long time coming, but Ferris promised many of them that their stories would be published.
