Essay
In 1986, singer Dobie Gray released From Where I Stand, an album identified as “country soul.” Because Gray, a Black man, had principally been marketed in pop and R&B, reviewers felt the need to address skepticism he might face about an entry into country music. “When they transition with Gray’s grace, then such moves should be »
Music Issue Companion CD Track List 1| “‘A passed-down thing. . .’” B.B. KING 2:07 B.B. King at his home, 11 December 1974. All B.B. King tracks are courtesy of the William R. Ferris Collection #20367, Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library, UNC-CH. 2| “Boogie Chillun” LOVEY WILLIAMS 2:14 Lovey Williams: guitar & vocals. Recorded in »
Music Issue Companion CD Track List 1| “Georgia Blues” CECIL BARFIELD 5:12 Art of Field Recording Volume II: 50 Years of Traditional American Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum, Dust-to-Digital, dust-digital.com 2| “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down II” MURRY HAMMOND 3:46 I Don’t Know Where I’m Going But I’m On My Way, Hummin’bird Records, myspace.com/murryhammond 3| “Must »
Music Issue Companion CD Track List 1| “A place called the South. . .” PETE SEEGER All Pete Seeger tracks are from William R. Ferris and Michael K. Honey’s 1989 San Francisco interview, courtesy of the William R. Ferris Collection #20367 in the Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library, UNC-CH 2| “Barbry Ellen” LEAVES FROM OFF »
Photo Essay
We’re not 8 AM folks. So we mostly missed the start of William Ferris’s courses on Southern Music and Southern Literature, which he long held down the hall at our home in the Center for the Study of the American South at UNC. Instead, we tended to catch Bill filing out of the classroom with »
“Who could miss the blood-pounding rush of events that awful spring, with the bands playing, the girls cheering, elders looking proud and tearful, as scowls of disapproval already darkened against ‘tories’ and shirkers?” Robert Penn Warren is one of the unquestioned giants of twentieth-century southern culture. Poet, novelist, and reporter, he emerged as a younger »
Without ever stepping foot on southern soil, renowned literary translator Krastan Dyankov made southern writing—its language, narratives, and nuances—come alive in his native Bulgarian. “The translator—not only of fiction, but of any text—is the Pony Express for the culture,” Dyankov said. “A great responsibility and a true knowledge of the matter you work with is »
Photo Essay
“I passed the sign frequently and always noticed its beautiful lettering. Finally, I stopped and photographed it, thankfully, because the sign is now gone.” Editor’s Note: Outtakes from The South in Color, published by UNC Press, September 2016. This stockman’s cane was made by Victor “Hickory Stick” Bobb out of hickory wood (1976). Mr. Bobb »
“The true ‘Hootchie Kootchie Man,’ Muddy Waters summons all the powers of the voodoo doctor in his guttural, deep blues voice.” For over a century the blues has served as the musical anchor of American music. Muddy Waters aptly titled one of his songs “The Blues Had a Baby, and They Named it Rock and »
“Irish rockers U2 are committed fans of B.B. King and wrote the song ‘When Love Comes to Town’ at his request. The song introduced King to important new rock audiences.” To explore the relationship between Ireland and southern culture is for many southerners an intensely personal journey. My own family has Irish ancestry on both »
Honoring William Christenberry (1936–2016) Bill Christenberry was like a spiritual brother who explored his homeland in Hale County, Alabama, with a keen eye. Each summer he returned to document and photograph these familiar worlds. With his meticulous eye, he showed the weight of time on this landscape, tracking change as paint faded and peeled on »
“I love B. B. because he loves women. They can be mean, they can be bitchy, they can be carrying on, but you can tell he really loves them. He’s full of love. I would like to be the literary B.B. King.” My friendship with Alice Walker began in the fall of 1970 when I »