A Grammy Winner

Bill Ferris '60 has spent his career documenting the American South through film, audio recordings, folklore and photography, and he's earned countless recognition for his work. Now, he can add two Grammy Awards to his shelf: A retrospective of his work, a four-disc, box-set release titled "Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians, Documented by William Ferris," won the Grammy for Best Historical Album in January. The 120-page book included in the box set, edited by Ferris, took home a separate Grammy for Best Album Notes.

The set, 10 years in the making, provides a survey of the sights and sounds of the Delta in ways that feel both profound and personal. Ferris finds his way into churches — one pastor claims Ferris as one of his flock on tape — and onto front porches in pursuit of music and people. The set includes tracks from famous musicians such as Mississippi Fred McDowell, and places them next to tracks of haunting melodies sung by inmates at the Parchman Farm penitentiary. The set includes the book, which features essays by noted folklorists, two compact discs of Ferris's blues and gospel recordings, one compact disc of storytelling and interviews conducted by Ferris, and one DVD of Ferris's documentary films.

Ferris is a native of Vicksburg, Mississippi, the former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the co-founder of the Center for Southern Folklore in Memphis, Tennessee. He is also the founding director of the Center for Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. In 2002, Ferris accepted a position as a history professor and senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He is the author of 10 books, has recorded blues albums and produced 15 documentary films on Southern folklore, and hosted the weekly Mississippi Public Radio blues show for 10 years. Former president Bill Clinton awarded him the Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities; he was also inducted into France's Order of Arts and Letters; and he was awarded the Distinguished Brooksian in 2010.