Deep Roots: Evocations of the Mississippi Blues

Bill Steber has documented blues culture in Mississippi for the last 30+ years, chronicling the state’s blues musicians, juke joints, churches, river baptisms, hoodoo practitioners, traditional farming methods, folk traditions and other significant traditions that gave birth to or influenced the blues. The work is gathered in his exhibit “Stones in my Pathway” as well as in the pages of Living Blues magazine and other publications.

Steber, a native of Centerville, TN, was a staff photojournalist for the Tennessean in Nashville from 1989-2004, winning dozens of regional and national awards while shooting everything from national politics to New York runway fashion and the Super Bowl.

Since 2007, he has explored 21st-century American culture through the use of 19th century wet plate photography, including tintypes, ambrotypes and glass negatives.

In addition to his photography, Steber makes music with The Jake Leg Stompers, the Hoodoo Men, The Jericho Road Show and The Stoop Down Rounders.