Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris

The impressive scholarship and production nous of the Atlanta-based Dust-to-Digital label is here applied to a multimedia collection of the work of Mississippi-born folklorist William R Ferris, now 76 and a professor at the University of North Carolina. One of several essays in the accompanying handsome illustrated book explores the young Ferris’ initial efforts to document African-American musical life on and around his father's farm while a student in the 1950s and 60s. Many of the recordings heard and the films seen on the DVD here were assembled by Ferris between the late 1960s and the end of the 70s, during which time he also taught at Yale and co-created the Memphis-based Center for Southern Folklore. Ferris was eventually appointed by president Bill Clinton as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The book also provides background essays for the set's four discs and the traditions that were already fleeting when captured by Ferris four decades ago.

The first disc, ‘Blues’, ranges from the raw Delta sound of guitarist and singer James ‘Son Ford’ Thomas to the hill country blues of Mississippi Fred McDowell and the hammer-swinging chants of incarcerated Parchman Farm inmates. ‘Gospel’ varies from the more familiar hymn-based sound of the Baptist sect to the lesser-known ecstatic material from the Church of God in Christ. On the ‘Interviews and Storytelling’ disc, Ferris documents Southern culture in the spoken words of writers such as Alice Walker, Alex Haley, Barry Hannah, and Robert Penn Warren, and BB King gives an extended spoken tribute to his guitar, Lucille. The ‘Documentary Films’ DVD presents seven musical and cultural shorts by Ferris, with valuable insights into the lives of some visual artists and several of the musicians heard on the other discs, set in and around their hardscrabble homes and churches.