Judy Peiser – Memphis Flyer

Center for Southern Folklore Space Has Changed But Remains Open

The Center for Southern Folklore is still open. It’s just not visible from the street anymore.

“We’re located behind the Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art,” says Mark Hayden, the center’s archives and store manager. “We’re at 119 South Main, Suite 106.”

They’ve been at that location, but they used to have additional space that had an entrance on Main Street. “The Peanut Shoppe (at 121 South Main Street) was our old store.”

The center downsized last summer, Hayden says. Now, everything is together, he says.

“Everything is back here,” Hayden says. “The museum is on one side and the store is on the other. I’ve always called it a museum. I remember Judy always called it a ‘cultural center.’”

Hayden was referring to executive producer Judy Peiser, who, along with William R. Ferris, were the center’s co-founders. They managed to move everything from the front to the back area.

“We moved it all up here,” Hayden says. “Actually, it looks pretty good in here. But people don’t know we’re back here. We’ve got a Facebook and an Instagram account where I post things. And I get a fairly good following. But I’m not getting the crowds coming in.”

Center for Southern Folklore (Credit: Michael Donahue)

The center currently is open between 9:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. “We hope to open up our music schedule real soon.”

Live music traditionally was featured on Saturdays and Sundays. “Mostly Saturday night. We haven’t gotten our volunteer schedule yet. Once we do that, we will, hopefully, feature music on weekends.”

They originally had two stages: one in front and one in the back area, where they now operate. The old one in front was for the weekend music shows.

“The main purpose of the stage where I am right now was for the larger touring shows. Like Kate Campbell would come. Or, we would open it when we had our folklife festival — the Music and Heritage Festival.

“I would say that the stage that we have here is maybe one and a half times the size of the old one. Which isn’t a huge stage, but it’s larger than what we had.”

The festival was a Labor-Day-weekend tradition until a few years years ago. “We hope to bring it back, but with our volunteerism and pandemic we’ve kind of been on hold for three years.

Center for Southern Folklore used to operate a restaurant, Hayden says. “At one time we served breakfast and lunch, but we no longer serve that. Now, we do have cookies and coffee.”

The public can take advantage of the museum’s wealth of Memphis history. “We’ve got a southernfolklore.com web site, an online store that kind of details anything from CDs, and DVDs, and artwork, and books, and records. I call it ‘uniquely Memphis.’ Everything is local. And it’s submitted by local people.”

As for the center’s extensive archives, Hayden says, “I would say it’s the best. We’ve got a great archives.”

In addition to photos, written material, and video, and film footage on blues players and other musicians, the center also has material on local Jewish history and the Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, Hayden says.

“It was gathered by Judy. I don’t know the whereabouts and background behind everything because I’ve only been here about 10 or 12 years. The archives started, I think, in the mid ‘70s. The whole organization started as an archive.”

But, he says, “It just morphed into a rental area.”

The public can access the archives, Hayden says. “We’re not online, but they can come in. And if there is something they’re interested in, they can look through our archives.

“They can look at it. It’s free. If they want something scanned, that will cost something. As a nonprofit, we need to pay our bills.”

Hayden recently had “a number of emails” from people looking for information. “We get a lot of interest in the history of Beale Street.

“We work with the Jewish Historical Society. They wanted to know Jewish businessmen on Beale Street.”

“We have transcripts from Beale Street and from Holocaust survivors. And just different people that worked downtown.”

Musically, he says, “There was one company from California that wanted information on Rufus Thomas.”

The Center for Southern Folklore has “just grown from what it originally was. We’ve moved a few times. It started out in Judy’s home, moved to Beale Street, then to the New Daisy. Then, we had our own location. And now we’re back here behind the Belz Museum.”

The center also is available to be rented for events, including weddings, symposiums, and bar mitzvahs, Hayden says.

Peiser once wrote down the purpose of the Center for Southern Folklore: “To preserve the unique culture of the south through the music and the legend and people.

“I think it’s a valuable commodity,” Hayden says.

For more information, call (901) 525-3655

Dr. William Ferris with his camera in Mississippi in the 1970s.

In the early 1970s, William Ferris was a graduate student studying folklore at the University of Pennsylvania. His specialty was studying the rich musical culture of North Mississippi. “I was doing field recordings and photography, and coming back and presenting that. I felt I couldn’t communicate the full power of the church services and juke joints I was working in. Film would be the best way to do that. No one there was willing to help me, at the film school. So I got a little super 8 camera and began to shoot footage and do wild sound on a reel-to-reel recorder. I put together these really basic, early films, which in many ways are the best things I ever did. It’s very visceral, powerful material. I brought those back, and people were just blown away by them.”

Ferris was particularly interested in the proto-blues fife and drum music tradition kept alive in Gravel Springs, Mississippi, by Othar Turner. “I was trying to finish a film on Othar Turner that I had shot, and David Evans had done the sound. Judy Peiser was working at public television in Mississippi, and she interviewed me. I told her about the fife and drum film, and she said she would like to edit it. That led to the creation of the Center for Southern Folklore in 1972, and to a long history of working on films. I would spend my summers in Memphis when I was teaching at Yale. We would work on films and other projects. I made a lot of wonderful friends that I’ve been close to ever since.”

Dr. Ferris, with the help of Peiser and others, acquired progressively better equipment and, over the years, created a series of short documentaries immortalizing the artists and traditions of the Mississippi Delta. His successful academic career would go on to include a stint as the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Currently, he is a Senior Associate Director Emeritus at the Center for Study of the American South at the University of South Carolina, Chapel Hill. The Center for Southern Folklore, which he and Peiser founded, became a beloved institution in Memphis. “The Center has made a mark, and continues to make a mark with its festivals and exhibits. Judy Peiser has continued it. She’s an anchor for all this work and Memphis, and really a national treasure.”

On Friday, May 17th, Indie Memphis will present “Voices of Mississippi,” a collection of Ferris’ now-classic short documentaries, beginning with “Gravel Springs Fife and Drum.” “Ray Lum: Mule Trader” introduces us to the title character, who Ferris calls “an amazing raconteur.” Ferris recorded the auctioneer’s stories and tall tales in film, and with an accompanying book and soundtrack. “There are two soundtracks. You can hear the wild sound, and his voice. I don’t think that had ever been done before. All of that was published and produced through the Center. I think it was really ahead of its time in terms of media and film.”

“Four Women Artists” documents writer Eudora Welty, quilter Picolia Warner, needleworker Ethel Mohamed and painter Theora Hamblett “Bottle Up and Go” records a Loman, Mississippi, musician demonstrating “one strand on the wall,” a precursor to the slide guitar that makes an instrument out of a house. “It’s one of the earliest instruments that every blues singer learned on as a child, because it was free,” says Ferris. “He also did bottle blowing. Both of those are sounds that have deep roots in Africa and are the roots of the blues.”

Dr. Ferris will bring along some of his Memphis-based collaborators and sign the Grammy-inning box set of his life’s work. He says that for him, this Memphis screening is like a homecoming.“To me, Memphis is the undiscovered bohemian culture,” he says. “You have black and white, rural and folk voices coming out of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee, meeting this formally educated group of musicians and artists like Sid Selvidge, William Eggleston. Music and photography was a big part of the scene. The photography, because of Eggleston and Tav Falco and Ernest Withers, makes Memphis unique. It just has so many pieces that you don’t find in the French Quarter in New Orleans, where William Faulkner went to write. You have Julian Hohenberg, this very wealthy cotton broker whose heart is in music. He was involved in the music scene for many, many years. It’s the escape valve for people who love the arts. It’s really funky and countercultural. Everything they couldn’t do in these little towns and rural areas, they do in Memphis — and they do it with a passion.”

“Voices of Mississippi” will screen at 6 PM on Friday, May 17 at the Crosstown Theater. RSVP for a free ticket at the Indie Memphis website.