Book Description

This Omnibus Ebook for the first time brings together pioneering folklorist William Ferris's books on the music and arts of the South. Included in this ebook are: Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues: Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, 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 original music and original film, 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. The enhanced ebook edition includes: * Almost 2 hours of video clips and interviews scattered throughout the text * An hour of original music, also imbedded throughout the text * Concludes with the full DVD of original film and full CD of original music The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists: The Storied South features the voices--by turn searching and honest, coy and scathing--of twenty-six of the most luminous artists and thinkers in the American cultural firmament, from Eudora Welty, Pete Seeger, and Alice Walker to William Eggleston, Bobby Rush, and C. Vann Woodward. Masterfully drawn from one-on-one interviews conducted by Ferris over the past forty years, the book reveals how storytelling is viscerally tied to southern identity and how the work of these southern or southern-inspired creators has shaped the way Americans think and talk about the South. The enhanced ebook edition includes 45 of Ferris's striking photographic portraits of the speakers and original audio and films of the interviews.