About the Film
David Hoffman writes.... "You'll see clips from many wonderful Southern Culture films in this video. The Mississippi Delta is one of those places where the Blues began. BB King said it. This is my interview with the great folklorist filmmaker William Ferris. Why do I say" great"? Because without any special training, listening to his heart, he left the farm that he came from and began to record stories from the people around him. He was mesmerized by Blues Music, Gospel Music, by the local people black and white, by the artists and the storytellers - most completely unknown. Some of those who he recorded became very famous, like BB King and Eudora Welty."
Hoffman continues... "I was fortunate that Bill Ferris connected with me because of my BB King at Sing Sing Prison documentary and his love a BB King. We did this video recording together and I have placed clips from his documentaries sprinkled throughout our interview. Each film to my mind, is a jewel of a moment in time - real lives being lived for real, without any filmmaking tricks designed to get you to pay attention. If you watch it you will feel you are seeing something raw and real as it happened, and you get a sense of why and how meaningful the Blues is, not only for the folks from Mississippi or the little towns they came from, or their color of skin or their economic status, but because, as one of the subjects presented in this video says - "we all know the Blues, don’t we"! Yes. We do."
