Pretty sure I've mentioned the Hoodoo Men - Bill Steber and Sammy Baker - before, but now I'm happy to say that Bill and Sammy will be opening my 2024-25 UTC
Live! season with a HooDoo Men Halloween show. Actually, Bill will be on campus all week as he is an award-winning photojournalist who has been documenting Mississippi Delta blues musicians and juke joints for over 30 years, sometimes using ancient tintype photographic processes.
We'll be working with our Communications students - the Rising Rock class will document him making a tintype photo of the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum's 4501 steam locomotive and the Photojournalism II students will work with him to develop some photo-stories of work in TVRRM's maintenance facility, along with speaking with a number of history, anthropology, and literature classes before working with our music composition students. Among other activities. We'll have a large part of his recent Baldwin Gallery exhibit on campus so our students get a feel for this subject.
If you're interested, here's a link to Bill's exhibit (it's now down but coming to us and then to Mississippi State for a large exhibit in the spring of 2025. The photos are amazing, plus each one has an interview or song attached to it - it's interactive:
https://www.baldwinphotogallery.com/copy-of-exhibitions
And here's some info on Bill and his research, courtesy of Country Blues magazine:
https://www.thecountryblues.com/artist-reviews/bill-steber/
And so you get a feel for his point of view, here's his web site. The cover photo is just killer:
http://www.steberphoto.com/