In 1975, when he was just over twenty years old, Vincenzo Castella spent four months in the American South, traveling through the region surrounding the Mississippi River. His journey was an ethnographic exploration in search of the last blues musicians: he listened to them perform and recorded their stories. At the same time, he discovered a lesser-known America—one of places and people that rarely attract attention. Rediscovered in a drawer decades later, these photographs, rendered in luminous black and white, are a delight to behold. They reveal and revisit a compelling America of deep roots, while marking the beginning of the artistic path of one of Italy's foremost photographers.