Harvard Club of the Research Triangle

Professor William (Bill) Ferris, internationally renowned folklorist and author, brought the rich flavor of the Delta Blues to the Harvard Club of the Research Triangle at the Radisson Hotel in RTP on Thursday 25th, 2010.

Also, William (Bill) Friday, President Emeritus of the UNC System was present to receive the club’s annual Roland Giduz Community Service Award in recognition of his lifetime of service to North Carolina.

Bill Ferris is no stranger to our club. He has previously entertained us with humorous stories and songs. On this occasion, Bill talked about his new book, Give My Poor Heart Ease, about musicians and the music of the Mississippi Delta. He also autographed copies of his book (available for purchase at the luncheon).

Give My Poor Heart Ease: Throughout the 1960s and '70s, Ferris toured his home state of Mississippi, seeking out blues musicians, documenting their stories about the diverse musical traditions that form the authentic roots of the blues. 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, the book includes a CD of original music and a DVD of original film. More than twenty interviews relating frank, dramatic, and engaging narratives about black life and blues music in the heart of the American South will fascinate and enlighten readers.

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 performers known only in their own neighborhoods, express the full range of human and artistic experience—joyful and gritty, raw, painful and triumphant.

William Ferris is the Joel 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. A former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ferris co-edited the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture and is the author of Blues from the Delta. Rolling Stone magazine has named him among the top ten professors in the United States. For more on Ferris, please go to http://history.unc.edu/faculty/ferris.html or view a brief interview with him at http://www.youtube.com/uncchapelhill#p/u/6/DHNkldOVG8g.