Bill Ferris

Ray Lum (1891-1977) was a mule skinner, a livestock trader, an auctioneer, and an American original. His home and his auction barn were in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and in trading he fanned out over twenty states and into Mexico. A west Texas newspaper reported his fame this way: "He is known all over cow country for his honest fair dealing and gentlemanly attitude..... A letter addressed to him anywhere in Texas probably would be delivered."

In his warm snapshot of the Mississippi Delta, folklorist and filmmaker William Ferris sits down with music legend B.B. King and other denizens of the deep south to talk about the blues. Interviewing local musicians ranging from inmates at Parchman Prison to a virtuoso guitar-playing barber, Ferris finds the genre cannot be pinned down to a single definition or origin. The blues permeates the territory as an infectious feeling, heard in musical notes thrummed from impromptu instruments like broomsticks and axes, in addition to guitars.

No one could spin a yarn to make a sale like Ray Lum. Twenty years after their initial meeting, Bill Ferris returned home to Mississippi in the early ‘70s with a camera. The result reveals a look back at the colorful rhythms of Ray’s life—at home, at the auction, joking with strangers outside country stores— and provides a glimpse at Southern manhood, friendship and loss. Now nearly Ray’s age when they first filmed, Ferris has become a Grammy Award winning documentarian and renowned folklorist. Using never before seen 16mm footage and new animations, OKAY, MR. RAY is a short documentary film about how even the tallest tales help us keep the memory alive of the ones we love.

A compelling and award-winning portrait of Othar Turner, his music and their role in the Gravel Springs community. The film not only demonstrates how to make a cane fife, but also gets to the heart of both Turner and his fife and drum music as he's shown performing at an annual Fourth of July picnic. Quick cuts between dancing band members and the rhythmic movements of Turner's family going about their daily chores capture the mounting excitement and provide a rare, revealing glimpse of the work and play that characterize this traditional rural Mississippi society.

TWO BLACK CHURCHES is based on fieldwork Bill Ferris conducted at a church in Vicksburg, Miss. and at a church in New Haven, Conn. Footage includes a full immersion baptism, congregation members and preachers at both churches discussing their call to the faith, and scenes from worship services at both churches. The film contrasts the two approaches to worship at each church.

16mm color documentary based on fieldwork William Ferris conducted with gospel singer and folk healer Fannie Bell Chapman and her family in Centreville, Mississippi in the early 1970s. Footage includes Chapman and her daughters singing and praying during church services and at home, a healing service at the Chapman home, and Chapman "speaking in tongues" after healing. Members of the Chapman family also discuss the development of their faith, the call to heal and sing the Christian gospel, and their lives singing together.

Ray Lum (1891-1977) was a mule skinner, a livestock trader, an auctioneer, and an American original. His home and his auction barn were in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and in trading he fanned out over twenty states and into Mexico. A west Texas newspaper reported his fame this way: "He is known all over cow country for his honest fair dealing and gentlemanly attitude..... A letter addressed to him anywhere in Texas probably would be delivered."

In his warm snapshot of the Mississippi Delta, folklorist and filmmaker William Ferris sits down with music legend B.B. King and other denizens of the deep south to talk about the blues. Interviewing local musicians ranging from inmates at Parchman Prison to a virtuoso guitar-playing barber, Ferris finds the genre cannot be pinned down to a single definition or origin. The blues permeates the territory as an infectious feeling, heard in musical notes thrummed from impromptu instruments like broomsticks and axes, in addition to guitars.

In his warm snapshot of the Mississippi Delta, folklorist and filmmaker William Ferris sits down with music legend B.B. King and other denizens of the deep south to talk about the blues. Interviewing local musicians ranging from inmates at Parchman Prison to a virtuoso guitar-playing barber, Ferris finds the genre cannot be pinned down to a single definition or origin. The blues permeates the territory as an infectious feeling, heard in musical notes thrummed from impromptu instruments like broomsticks and axes, in addition to guitars.

No one could spin a yarn to make a sale like Ray Lum. Twenty years after their initial meeting, Bill Ferris returned home to Mississippi in the early ‘70s with a camera. The result reveals a look back at the colorful rhythms of Ray’s life—at home, at the auction, joking with strangers outside country stores— and provides a glimpse at Southern manhood, friendship and loss. Now nearly Ray’s age when they first filmed, Ferris has become a Grammy Award winning documentarian and renowned folklorist. Using never before seen 16mm footage and new animations, OKAY, MR. RAY is a short documentary film about how even the tallest tales help us keep the memory alive of the ones we love.

A compelling and award-winning portrait of Othar Turner, his music and their role in the Gravel Springs community. The film not only demonstrates how to make a cane fife, but also gets to the heart of both Turner and his fife and drum music as he's shown performing at an annual Fourth of July picnic. Quick cuts between dancing band members and the rhythmic movements of Turner's family going about their daily chores capture the mounting excitement and provide a rare, revealing glimpse of the work and play that characterize this traditional rural Mississippi society.

TWO BLACK CHURCHES is based on fieldwork Bill Ferris conducted at a church in Vicksburg, Miss. and at a church in New Haven, Conn. Footage includes a full immersion baptism, congregation members and preachers at both churches discussing their call to the faith, and scenes from worship services at both churches. The film contrasts the two approaches to worship at each church.

16mm color documentary based on fieldwork William Ferris conducted with gospel singer and folk healer Fannie Bell Chapman and her family in Centreville, Mississippi in the early 1970s. Footage includes Chapman and her daughters singing and praying during church services and at home, a healing service at the Chapman home, and Chapman "speaking in tongues" after healing. Members of the Chapman family also discuss the development of their faith, the call to heal and sing the Christian gospel, and their lives singing together.

Rare 8mm footage of black churches in the Mississippi Delta in 1968. Includes footage from rural church services and a full immersion baptism. The audio is only roughly in sync with the picture, but this makes the film even more powerful and authentic. Produced by Center for Southern Folklore by William Ferris and edited in 16mm by Judy Peiser.

16mm color documentary based on fieldwork William Ferris conducted with African American storytellers and bluesmen in the communities of Leland and Rose Hill, Mississippi. The stories include include folk and religious tales, jokes, toast telling sessions, and characters from African American oral tradition. The film also includes footage filmed at churches and juke joints.

Bill Ferris writes…”This film was originally edited by Josette Ferris and me from super-8 and 16mm footage that I shot in 1967 and 1968 in Lorman, Leland, and Clarksdale, Mississippi." A film documenting traditional blues styles in Mississippi.

A 16mm documentary based on fieldwork that William Ferris conducted with African American folk artists throughout Mississippi. Footage includes Richard Foster at the "dog trot" house he grew up in, basket maker Leon "Peck" Clark, quilter Amanda Gordon, floral gardener Esther Criss, cane fife maker Otha Turner, painter and cane maker Lester Willis, and sculptor James "Son" Thomas. The artists discuss their informal training, artisic motivation and vision, and the value they attach to their art while working on their crafts.

Meet Tom Johnson and his praying pigs. "Been fooling with them hogs for 35 long years," Johnson says in the film as he rocks on the porch of his modest residence near Bentonia, Mississippi. "It's just an idea that I took up. It's a play thing. And it put me into something that I didn't get out of too easy and so soon." The pigs, taught to stand beside their brimming slop trough with heads bowed while Johnson prayed over their food, dug in with gusto when he finally released them to eat. Johnson died in 1980, but the four minute film is a lasting reminder of his special pig training talents.

This film follows Louis Dotson, a farmer and musician in Lorman, Mississippi, as he constructs a “one-string guitar” on the wall of his front porch. Dotson also “blows the bottle” using a Coca-Cola bottle partially filled with water. Both his bottle blowing and his one-strand-on-the-wall are important links between African musical roots and the blues. The one-strand marks the beginning of the “slide guitar” style which heavily influenced 20th-century blues, rock and roll, and rock music.

The film will be released on June 1 as part of Voices of Mississippi, a CD/DVD/book set of featuring blues and gospel recordings, interviews, and documentary films by Ferris—an archive of his life’s work.