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Editorial Review Product Description
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 documentary record. Illustrated with Ferris's photographs of the speakers and their communities and including a dual CD/DVD that presents his original field recordings and films, the book features more than twenty musicians who relate frank, dramatic, and engaging narratives 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. From celebrities such as B. B. King and Willie Dixon to artists known best in their neighborhoods, they express the full range of human experience--joyful and gritty, raw and painful.
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 illuminates blues music, the broader African American experience, and indeed the history and culture of America itself. ... Read more Customer Reviews (7) 
A Must for Serious Blues Lovers
Bill Ferris, the former director of NEH and a professor of History at the University of North Carolina,is a highly respected scholar in the field of Oral History.This book belongs on the shelf of every serious student of Folklore and ethnomusicology or anyone who likes music, especially the Blues.So well written and easy to read, the words slide off the pages and take you back to a time when great Blues singers were as common as Cottonmouths in the Mississippi Delta. Dr. Ferris shares his life and the lives of the seminal Blues musicians with his readers.This book is oral history the way it should be written.Ferris spent many years of his life recording the interviews in this book with the all-time great Blues musicians, like B.B. King.From cover to cover it reads like fiction, but every inch of it is true.We all know that a storyteller like a good Blues singer never lies or "spins a yarn"!The CD and DVD that accompany the book are extra icing on the cake. I hear that if you get the IPAD version the print magically turns into video at critical junctures in the stories.The long list of Bill Ferris's accomplishments reads like a who's who of Delta scholarship.If you want to understand the Blues from Mississippi to Chicago to the present day, this is the book to read.Early in the first chapter the author fades into the shadows and allows the musicians to tell their own unique stories.The key word in the title is "Voices".The author's skill as oral historian is to allow the voices of so many truly exceptional musicians to shout and holler, weep and moan, blending into one powerful tradition that has entertained this nation as long a people have eeked out a living as slaves, tenant farmers and laborers in the great delta of the Mississippi River that Bill Ferris is proud to call his home. Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues
ESSENTIAL!
William Ferris's book is a summary of 40 years of his field research, offering elegantly written portraits of the people and places he spent so much time amongst in the 1960's and beyond. His patch was, essentially, Mississippi and his self-defined brief was to capture the fast-dissapearing history of traditional blues and gospel by any means at his disposal. This included interviews, photos, taped performances and sound films. Unusual for the time, and now, four decades later, the five films are of especially great value. Moreover, they are all included here in DVD format, accompanied by a selection of field recordings on a CD, both packaged into the back of the book. So essentialy you have a multi-media product to absorb; words, photographic images, sound recordings and films, including the one which, in my view, is the best single documentary about what the blues actually means. At 21 minutes, his 1975 color film "Give My Poor Heart Ease"is the ideal introduction to the real purpose and underlying meaning of the Blues as catharsis for its original community, rather than mass entertainment. Ther are no California Rayban-wearing harp players here, just honest folk playing honest music because they have to. Whatever your level of interest in the blues is, Ferris's new volume is one to get and absorb.
fantastic find
what a great collection, written history and the sounds themselves as well as a dvd showing the people and instruments themselves a great gift for anyone who loves the blues.
"Give My Poor Heart Ease"
Professor William Ferris, a folklorist throughout the 1960s and 1970s, toured his home state of Mississippi, documenting the voices of African Americans while they spoke about and performed the diverse musical traditions which are the authentic roots of the blues.This book puts forward a selection of the artistically and very rich voices from this invaluable documentary record.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.
In this volume are stories of artists who have long memories and speak in an eloquent way about their lives, and blues musicians representing a wide range of musical traditions.These selections are concerned with one strand instruments, bottle-blowing and banjo to spirituals, hymns, and prison work changes.The reader is guided through such celebrities as B.B. King and Willie Dixon, along with performers known best in their neighborhoods, expressing the full range of human and artistic experience which were joyful and gritty, raw and painful.
In an autobiographic introduction, William Ferris, who is Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History and Senior Associate Director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, reflects on how he fell in love with the vibrant blues culture that was all around him, but considered off limits to a white Mississipian in a very troubled era.This beautiful study illuminates blues music, the broader African American experience and certainly the history and culture of America itself.
Blues and jazz readers should be aware that the stories in this volume are America's most treasured gifts to the world.These powerful stories bring us face to face with the blues, reminding us that this music has been used to survive while in the face of adversity and terror.
This book should entertain all those interested in the blues by the selections which are joyous, powerful and authentic.
Reviewed by Claude Ury
for blues hounds everywhere
This is an essential book for blues lovers. It traces the birth of Mississippi Delta blues, arguably the birthplace of American blues. There is an extended section on the influence of prisoners who were in Parchman Farm prison, made immortal by a song by Mose Allison years later. I highly recommend it.
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