For blues lovers who love their experience pure and strong. . . . Joyous, powerful and authentic, this package is designed to both inform and entertain those willing to plunge into this audacious world.”— Publishers Weekly

A Southern Indie Bookseller 2009 Fall Okra Pick

“Captures the cadences of [the musicians'] spoken voices and the stories of their lives, and the DVD and CD that accompany the book allow us to hear their music. . . . If the unhealed wound of injustice is everywhere present in these stories, many of the people telling them, like Ferris himself, have refused to see their lives reduced to race and stubbornly resist despair."
— Harper's Magazine

“Delivers exactly what its title promises: the words and voices [Ferris] collected of Mississippians who had it rough and, in telling about it, changed American music forever."
— Endeavors

“A captivating and diverse multimedia experience for fans and scholars of the blues and gospel music. . . . Highly recommended for anyone interested in the blues or Southern history." — Library Journal starred review

“Personal, anecdotal, lively and full of the same spirit that helps bring blues music to life. A great mix of stories from some renowned blues greats alongside people known only in their neighborhoods." — Publishers Weekly Indie Top 20 Selection

“A powerful book that presents a deep and probing look at music, culture, and Mississippi at particularly important moments in history. The stories told here work on multiple levels, as biographical context for creativity and artistic power, but also as literary expressions of the highest order." — Tom Rankin, director of the Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University

"This book is indispensable for anyone who cares to know the roots of Mississippi blues music. William Ferris interviewed dozens of people who spoke about their lives, their music, both secular and non-secular. They talked about field songs, prison chants, hymns and spirituals they sang in church. Some of these interviews are painful to read, but like singing the blues they make the pains bearable, and sometimes even comic. Give My Poor Heart Ease includes much more than simply blues music; it covers a wide spectrum of African American and American experience in a place that just happens to be in Mississippi."— Ernest J. Gaines, author of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Gathering of Old Men, and A Lesson Before Dying

"These stories and photographs evoke memories of my childhood and a world gone by but still with us — the blues are now and forever.”— William Christenberry, artist

"[A] blues goldmine.”— Carolina Arts & Sciences

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All images from the William R. Ferris Collection, Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, unless otherwise noted.