The Regulator Bookshop welcomes Tim Duffy of Music Makers, with folk historian Bill Ferris and the Glorifying Vines Sisters, in celebration of Duffy's new book, "Blue Muse: Timothy Duffy’s Southern Photographs." All are welcome. Free.
The tintype is rooted in more than 150 years of photographic method. In this collection of extraordinary portraits, Duffy brings new vitality to this old form, capturing powerful images of musicians who represent the roots of American music. These American blues, jazz, and folk artists are living expressions of a cultural legacy, made and remade by everyday people and passed down through generations. In the hands of the people in Duffy’s portraits, centuries-old traditions find new expression in this digital millennium. Some of the musicians in Duffy’s photographs have found fame, but most have not. While the world finds inspiration in the grassroots creativity of these musicians, barriers of class, race, and place often keep them under acknowledged and obscured. But in these photographs, Duffy demands they be seen.
Timothy Duffy's photography is held in the permanent collections of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Morris Museum of Art, among other museums and institutions. With his wife, Denise, he is cofounder of the Music Maker Relief Foundation (musicmaker.org). He lives in Hillsborough.
William R. Ferris is a professor of history at UNC–Chapel Hill and an adjunct professor in the Curriculum in Folklore. He is associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South, and is widely recognized as a leader in Southern studies, African-American music and folklore. He is the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Prior to his role at NEH, Ferris served as the founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, where he was a faculty member for 18 years. Ferris has written and edited 10 books and created 15 documentary films, most of which deal with African-American music and other folklore representing the Mississippi Delta. He co-edited the Pulitzer Prize nominee Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (UNC Press, 1989), which contains entries on every aspect of Southern culture and is widely recognized as a major reference work linking popular, folk, and academic cultures.
Based in Eastern North Carolina, The Glorifying Vines Sisters, made up of four sisters (Dorothy, Alice, Mattie, and Audrey) along with Johnny Ray Daniels on lead guitar,form the vocal core of the group. Their music is steeped in the traditions of quartet gospel. With over four decades of experience, the Vines Sisters continue to travel, record, perform, and minister through their music.
Blue Muse: Timothy Duffy’s Southern Photographs; 978-1469648262; Published by UNC PRESS in association with the New Orleans Museum of Art.
