Over our 22-year history, we're proud to have published 22 articles by our esteemed colleague and friend William Ferris—from interviewing B.B. King to finding Faulkner in Bulgaria.

Many Mississippi blues musicians — among them, Elmore James, Eddie Cusic, Big Jack Johnson, Lonnie Pitchford, and Napoleon Strickland— began their musical careers by learning as children to play a one-stringed homemade instrument sometimes called a diddley-bow.