William Ferris interviewed by Marc Borms
Do you know William 'Bill' Ferris? If, like me, you were crazy about music from the South in your youth and did everything you could to gather information about the culture of that far away region called Mississippi, then you must have come across the name ' Muddy Waters' at some point. McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters, was discovered by the legendary Alan Lomax , who together with his father drove around the deep South, to record music of local musicians from the trunk of their car.
But Lomax was not the only researcher, William 'Bill' Ferris is to this day a generally recognized authority in this field of research William “Bill” Ferris can be found today in Chapel Hill, NC at his sanctuary: The Center of Southern Folk Studies on the campus of the University of North Carolina. UNC is a site of many contradictions. On the one hand, the ' Confederate Monument', a statue of a Confederate soldier called ' Silent Sam' and on the other hand, the memorial statue for ' the Unsung Founders ', a heavy granite table carried by 300 bronze figures with the inscription ' Honors to the Universities Unsung Founders – the People of Color Bond and Free – Who Helped Build the Carolina that we cherish today '. Silent Sam was deposed from its pedestal by protesting students a few years ago, after more than a hundred years of presence.
William Reynolds Ferris was born on February 5, 1942, and spent his youth on his family's farm south of Vicksburg , Mississippi. His upbringing and the cultural specificity of the region, particularly his exposure to rural African-American music and artistic traditions, had a profound impact on his professional and personal life. Ferris documented historically neglected African-American communities in Mississippi. As a teenager, he attended several universities, earned a doctorate in folklore, and spent another year at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. He soon went on to teach at Jackson State and Yale. He continued to record and photograph throughout his career. In 1979 he became the founder of the 'Center for the Study of Southern Culture' at the University of Mississippi, the first program dedicated to the academic study of the region. Ferris remained with the center until 1997, when President Bill Clinton appointed him chairman of the National Endowment of Humanities . He returned to academia in 2002, becoming professor of history and associate director of the Center for the Study of the
American South' at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he remained until his retirement in 2018, the year I first met him.
Since 2018 I kept in touch with him and this interview is a continuation of that.
Hi Bill, tell us again where you're from.
I grew up on a farm in Warren County , near Vicksburg , MS. A large farm where my brother and I worked for my father, alongside the African American families who lived on the farm. As a very young child, Mary Gordon, a woman who worked for my family, took me to Rose Hill Church , a 150 year old church on the farm. The church was first built as a structure of tree branches tied together to provide some shelter for the worshippers, a "brush arbor church '. As a small child I went to the services on the first Sunday of every month and learned to appreciate the hymns and the sermons. As I grew older I realized that if those families were no longer there, the music would no longer exist, because there were no more hymns. All these songs were sung by heart. So as a teenager I started recording the services and interviewing the families. I also photographed and filmed their world and that led to a career as a folklorist. I tried to preserve the world I knew; I sensed even then that it was changing rapidly and would be forgotten without documentation. And for me that was a promise I made to people who were so important in my life. I wanted to honor, respect and preserve their traditions. Was music a part of your childhood? Then I started looking beyond the church and started recording blues singers. I recorded a great musician down at the ranch in Morning Star, a little crossroads community. His name was Levee Williams. He played acoustic guitar and had a powerful voice. He played great music and I recorded him and filmed him at a very early stage when I was just starting out and didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't realize until later that I had never seen or heard such a great performance. Filming and recording in the South in the 1960s. Wasn't it difficult to do your job in a segregated South? Did you have any problems there and how were you accepted by those black families so that you could interview them and even film them? I tried to avoid contact with white people as much as possible, because I knew very well that in those years it was dangerous for a white person to enter a black house, a world turned upside down. Sometimes the police would stop me and ask me what I was doing and I would
tell them that I was writing a book about music, in which musicians would also appear. I told them that I had grown up on a farm in Mississippi. The fact that I had a Mississippi driver's license seemed to satisfy them quickly, I was apparently 'one of them'. But I was always careful and my mother was afraid that I would be killed. She knew very well that it was not safe to do that work. It was dangerous, people were killed. Often disturbing things happened when a white person entered a black community. I was not afraid of the blacks but of the whites who violently attacked civil rights activists, black and white. And you were accepted and allowed into the private lives of those black families? I was always accepted. I was very serious and professional when I came to their home and they were grateful that their music and their life was being recorded in a book. They were happy that they could tell their story in the book. They wanted to spread the truth, and describe how it really was. And I said "you have my word". I told them that my book would be about their stories that were not yet told. Do you have a funny or strange story about one of your visits to the South? When I first met James 'Son' Thomas I was in Leland , MS looking for blues singers. Someone said I should go interview Son Thomas, "He lives across the railroad tracks from there". I found his house and knocked on the door and his wife Christine came to the door. She looked at me and said "What do you want?" and I said I was trying to find Son Thomas. She said he didn't live there. So I said sorry, turned around and started to leave. She called me back and said "What do you want from him anyway?" I said I was writing a book about the blues and I wanted him in it. She said "Go sit on the porch, he'll be back in an hour". I sat down and the kids came out and played on the porch. They came up to me and held my hand and talked to me and said "We want to be in the book". When Thomas finally came home I was already friends with his kids. From that moment on, whenever I was with him, the children would come and listen to me and sometimes sing. When he made his clay sculptures, they would look at them and make their own versions of what he did. That was an introduction I have often remembered. (James Son Thomas is not only known for his music but certainly also for his folk art in the form of clay figures, ed. ). Another time I was looking for a little town I had never heard of and I stopped at a house that had dogs on the porch. A man came out and asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted to go to that little town. He said you couldn’t get there from his house because there was no road that would take you there. That wasn’t true but it was his way of making fun of me for being lost. I didn’t learn that until later. You titled one of your books ' Give my poor heart ease '. What is the meaning of this book title? That sentence comes from the blues song 'Highway 61', a James 'Son' Thomas song : “I walk down highway 61 till I get down on my knees, trying to find someone, to give my poor heart ease”. That sums up black history. Blacks came to America in chains, as slaves, trying to escape with the help of abolitionists. After the Civil War and during Reconstruction, they became economic slaves, doing labor for white landowners. In the 20th century, during the Civil Rights Movement , they struggled to gain the right to vote. Always on the move, looking for northern cities where they hoped to be more accepted, raise a family, and enjoy their lives. Trying to find someone to give their poor hearts ease and ease is a metaphor for life in a black community and James Thomas captured it beautifully in his blues. Son Thomas became my guru. He was my teacher until his death. We traveled together to many meetings and gatherings. He contacted Allen Ginsberg, later went with me to the American Folklife Festival at the Smithsonian in Washington DC in the summer. Every year he came to my college classes, first at Jackson State. He was the first blues singer ever to perform at Jackson State University. Later he followed me and came to Yale and the University of Mississippi every year until his death. He was a teacher to my students as well as to me. In your book 'The Storied South' you show how 'storytelling' is connected to the identity of the South and how your work interviews have an influence on the way the world thinks and talks about the South. Who inspired you the most? I really grew up with storytellers. My grandfather, he was probably 80 years old, lived in a log cabin near my house on the farm and he would tell us stories like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. I will never forget it, it was a terrifying story. He had all these stories that he would share and there were others on the farm like Mary Gordon who would tell stories. And when I started recording music, I realized that the stories were just as important as the songs. How people learned to play guitar, what their lives were like growing up in MS. They had ghost stories, stories about impostors, memories of what had happened in their lives. I realized that you can put those together, like I did in 'The Storied South' and whether it was writers like Alice Walker or blues singers from BB King to James Son Thomas, quilt makers, ... they all loved to tell me their stories. They are very powerful. I started putting them down on paper, like the oral history of a mule trader in Vicksburg named Ray Lum . I probably have 50 hours of interviews with him. He was a master storyteller. I've always been fascinated by a good storyteller who starts telling a story. The room goes quiet and everyone pays attention to that person. You let the storyteller tell it the way he wants to tell it instead of approaching it in an academic way. Telling a story is a wisdom, an eloquence and in my opinion an art. Whether it is the story of your life or the story of a traditional character does not matter. Storytellers are not recognized enough. So when I did that, it was an act of protest against the academia that overlooked these voices. Fortunately, a lot has changed but a lot more needs to change Documenting, recording, filming, photographing are all ways of preserving. Sound, moving images and still images are now an art form. Sally Mann, Walker Evans, Gordon Parks are our best photographers. There has been a lot of work done by international visitors like Bertrand Tavernier who I worked with on a film called 'Mississippi Blues'. We filmed all over MS with Bertrand and his friend Robert Parrish . Many other filmmakers and photographers from all over Europe have documented and recorded. Paul Oliver in England was one of the pioneers. So this whole body of work is a treasure trove that keeps the traditions alive. Have you ever met Georges Adins ? No. I don't know him personally but I know he was close to Robert Sacré , who was a good friend and is missed. I thought I heard that his archive went to the University of Liège and was not - like Georges' archive - lost. of blues scholars , have you ever worked with John or Alan Lomax ? I have met and worked with Alan Lomax and his family over the years. When I was a student at Davidson College from 1960 to 1964 and discovered Alan's "The Folksongs of North America," I was impressed by him. I learned to play guitar from the songs in the collection. During that time, I met Alan's sister Shirley Lomax on a ship returning to New York from Europe and peppered her with questions about her family. I later met Alan's sister, Bess Lomax Hawes met and worked with her when she joined the Folk and Traditional ArtsDivision of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). I have met Alan Lomax a number of times over the years. When I was at Yale from 1972 to 1979, Judy Peiser and I showed our film, Fannie Bell Chapman : Gospel Singer , at a meeting of the Society for the Arts (NEA). Ethnomusicology ' at Wesleyan University and Alan was in the audience. At the end of the screening he spoke at length about the film. I also recorded a lecture by Alan in my American folklore class at Yale, which was well attended by both students and faculty. After moving from Yale to the University of Mississippi, I visited Alan at the Delta Blues Festival in Greenville , MS, in 1979, where we photographed each other with our cameras. I have a deep admiration for Alan, whom I see as a father figure for my career as a folklorist. In 2015 I gave a lecture at a festival in Rouen, France, dedicated to his life and work. Finally, I have known and worked with Alan's daughter Anna Lomax Wood for many years. I served on the board of Anna's Association for a number of years . Cultural Equity and have great respect for the work she does, bringing songs back to the communities where Alan recorded them many years ago. You had a project called 'I am a man' that deals with the civil rights movement . Have you ever experienced these moments from the front row? I never photographed the movement consciously but I was involved in ' Civil Rights Marches . We went to the March on Washington, for example. When I was a student, I helped organize a forum for black speakers. I was very aware of what was happening. When the two students at Ole Miss died -- when James Meredith was there -- I wrote an editorial for the newspaper about the terrible loss of life. And Martin Luther King, for example . That exhibition 'I am a man' was proposed by an old friend in Montpellier, France. He called me and asked me if I would be willing to curate that exhibition. It was a lot of work but important and I was able to get some of my students to help. It was a big event in France and later at the Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, MS. It is now a traveling exhibit. I was glad I was asked to do this, I would never have done it myself but it was a life changing experience. How did you end up at UNC? Tell me a little bit about your career there. Endowment for Humanities for four years , appointed by President Clinton. Towards the end of my term, several schools and universities approached me and asked if I would be interested in teaching. One of them was UNC. The president of UNC came to Washington DC to try to convince me, even though I knew UNC and was honored to teach there. I never fully realized what an important step it would be. There is the Southern Folklife Collection, which is where I have put all my work. It is a huge collection of Southern folklore, and a number of folklorists teach there. There are many activities in my field here that I would miss if I were at Jackson State, Yale, or Ole Miss. For example, the Wilson Library has the largest collection on the American South in the world, and that is my field. You can your online ( and free) course ''The American South: Its Stories, Music, and Art' . If you do , you'll soon be hungry for more. How can someone like me, who lives in Flanders, find a good way to learn more about the culture and history of the South? The course is a great place to start. A survey of music, literature, and art, it covers the highlights of my career and the work I have done on the American South, all within an academic framework. Another way to learn more is the Encyclopedia on Southern Culture, which I helped edit. This book has been reprinted in over 20 volumes over the years. It gives you a good foundation for studying the region, including books and articles to go further. For example, if you search for Charley Patton or William Faulkner, you will get a basic bibliography to get you started. Another source is ' Folkstreams ', the documentary film website where all my films are hosted. Guaranteed viewing pleasure for hours, and freely available to boot. Do you have a favorite roots music genre or artists? I have both. In my car I have a CD of Mississippi Fred McDowell , one of my all-time favorite musicians. His bottleneck guitar playing and his voice are just majestic, simple and clear. It brings you back to the ground of the music. No matter what I'm thinking or worrying about, this music is always a source of joy. I was able to meet him and record him. One of my students, Lee Turchy , had a project in my course and edited and produced a CD of my field recordings and that has always been a source of great pleasure to me. Chapel Hill 's Devil Down Recordings has announced the release of ' Come and Found You Gone , The Bill Ferris Recordings ', a new CD featuring over an hour of previously unreleased Mississippi Fred McDowell recordings, made by myself in 1967. These recordings are unlike any other Fred McDowell recording : rather than being conducted with the intent of producing a record, the recordings were made casually over the course of a night. McDowell is at his best here, relaxed and energetic, playing many of his most famous songs as well as songs never heard before. With his foot tapping on the hardwood floor and laughter in the background, ' Come and Found You Gone ' takes the listener back to that hot night in August 1967, immersing him in the world of a blues house party and guiding him through the night as it unfolds... The 18-track album includes a 16-page booklet with liner notes notes by myself, Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi All Stars, and eminent French blues scholar Vincent Joos. This booklet also contains a dozen award-winning photographs taken at Otha Turner's 1970 picnic in Potts Camp, Mississippi. Where has the blues gone? Is the blues still alive, or has it been relegated to a music of the past? Why is there a reluctance in the black community to embrace that history? There is a tourist industry, but is there still a legitimate folk tradition? If you were to do fieldwork today, what would you expect to find? Yes, the blues is still with us. The blues will always be with us. If you go to a community like Clarksdale , MS, there are musicians who play hip hop or rap but they also know the blues. Gospel singers know the blues too. It is part of a portfolio of musical traditions that every artist understands. They may not be known as blues singers but they certainly know what the blues is. A lot of the musicians still play the blues and play it well. They are getting recognized for their art. People like Super Chickan or the North MS All Stars, including Cody Dickinson, are blues singers who were inspired by MS Fred McDowell or Otha Turner. The blues is now a worldwide art form and both black and white musicians perform it, inspired by a new form of poetry, the 'blues poem ' that emerged from the Harlem Renaissance, the collaboration between WC Handy, the father of the blues, and Langston Hughes , the poet. Handy, the father of the blues. He grew up in Alabama and lived in Memphis for many years before moving to New York. They worked together writing blues poems which they set to music and put into a book. That form of poetry, like a sonnet in Shakespeare's words, is now part of what every poet knows as the blues. People like Alice Walker or Sterling Plumpp in Chicago write about the blues and are very aware that the blues is a form of poetry as well as a musical form. There is a literary critique by a literary scholar and jazz critic at Columbia University who has argued that Huckleberry Finn is a blues novel and Huck is a deceptive blues character. He is white in the novel and yet he claims that Huck Finn is all about the blues story. And there is the art of artists like Romere Bearden , who was part of the New York art scene. He grew up in North Carolina but his art consists of scenes of blues singers and the syncopated rhythms that you find in blues music. They are reflected in the collages. So blues is even a source of inspiration today for classical composers like Larry Hoffman, who wrote the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, MD. He and others teach the blues as a form of music in addition to symphony. He wrote the concerto "Violoncello for Blues" with classical instruments performing the music. So the blues is everywhere in our culture: pop, folk, classical music, literature, art. They are all permeated by the blues of today. Not just in the US but all over the world. I am always impressed by the young musicians who are classically trained in their country's institutions and who play the blues. They can play Bach or Beethoven but they can also play the country blues. Rhiannon Giddens, for example, is the embodiment of how the blues has inspired classically trained artists. A classically trained opera singer, she is first and foremost a composer and performer. She used to come to my class with her group, the Carolina Chocolate Drops , playing old -time country music that has its roots in the black music tradition. She now lives in Ireland and is very interested in world music. But the three original members first met at a conference on the history of black banjo music. They all came from different backgrounds but loved their music so much that they formed the band and created a folk blues revival. What do you want to be remembered for when this is all said and done? As someone who loved to listen to a good story and a good melody and tried to preserve voices and artists for future use. Wherever they live in the world, these voices will always be welcome. Thank you so much for letting me tell my story. I am a huge fan of everything you do!
Marc Borms
