GIVE MY POOR HEART EASE—————

­——VOICES

­OF­THE

MISSISSiPPI

BLUES—————­——

W I L L I A M ­ F E R R I S

“I­reveled­in­these­stories.”—Toni­Morrison

ISBN 978-0-8078-3325-4

9 780807 833254

9 0 0 0 0

“These voices express the blues in a deep and

truthful way. They touched my heart.”

—B.­B.­King

“Like Bill Ferris, I grew up in Mississippi. My

life is continually shaped by the blues. This book

captures those rich voices so well.”

—Morgan­Freeman

“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.”—Quincy­Jones

“This book is indispensable for anyone who cares

to know the roots of Mississippi blues music. 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.”—Ernest­J.­Gaines, author

of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A

Gathering of Old Men, and A Lesson Before Dying

“These stories and photographs evoke memories

of my childhood and a world gone by but still with

us—the blues are now and forever.”

—William­Christenberry, artist

Includes­a­CD­of­original­music­and­a­DVD­of­original­film

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 documen-tary record. Illustrated with Ferris’s photo-graphs of the musicians and their commu-nities and including a CD of original field recordings and a DVD of original film, the book features more than twenty interviews relating frank, dramatic, and engaging nar-ratives 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 artists known best in their neighborhoods, express the full range of human experience—joyful and gritty, raw and painful. The book intro-duces readers to such remarkable individu-als as Fannie Bell Chapman (gospel singer and faith healer), Otha Turner (fife player), Johnny Lee “Have Mercy” Thomas (former Parchman Penitentiary inmate), Lee Kizart (blues pianist), and Tom Dumas (fiddle and banjo player). Here are the towns and cities where the blues developed in power-ful ways, black neighborhoods like the Brickyard in Clarksdale and Kent’s Alley in Leland. The final section of the book joins sacred and secular worlds, highlighting a

Rose Hill Church service and a Clarks dale blues house party, each cele brating and affirming the spirit in distinctive ways.

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 brings to life blues music, the broader African American experience, and indeed the history and culture of America itself.

William­­Ferris

is Joel R. William-son Eminent Professor of His-tory 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 Endow-ment for the Humanities, Ferris coedited the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture and is author of Blues from the Delta. Rolling Stone magazine has named him among the Top Ten Professors in the United States.

To see more, visit www.GiveMyPoorHeartEase.com.

The­University­of­North­Carolina­Presswww.uncpress.unc.edu

Jacket illustrations: front, B. B. King, Lucifer’s Club, Boston, 1976; back, Scott Dunbar, Lake Mary, 1968 (William Ferris)

“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.”—T­Bone­Burnett

“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.”—Tom­Rankin,

director of the Center for Documentary Studies,

Duke University

The­

­ University­

­ of­North­

­ Carolina­

­ Press

Printed in Canada

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