Now available on DVD and via Streaming

DEEP ROOTS:
The Art and Music of
Bill Steber and Friends

DEEP ROOTS: The Art and Music of Bill Steber and Friends is the latest feature-length music film directed by Robert Mugge, and produced by Mugge with his partner Diana Zelman. It is intended as a companion piece to Mugge’s 1991 film DEEP BLUES, which explored blues traditions of the Mississippi Delta and North Mississippi Hill Country. DEEP ROOTS examines the life and work of artist, photographer, and musician Bill Steber, while showcasing Black and white musical traditions of the nineteen-twenties and nineteen-thirties, and rural music scenes of Mississippi and Tennessee. The film's first half takes place in Steber’s home base of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and its second half in the Mississippi Delta, long a major focus of his work. Included are interviews conducted at a Murfreesboro gallery exhibit of Steber’s art and photography; visits to Clarksdale, Mississippi’s Juke Joint Festival and Leland, Mississippi’s Highway 61 Blues Museum; and public performances by three of Steber’s powerful music groups: Jake Leg Stompers, Stoop Down Rounders, and Hoodoo Men.

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"Deep Roots: The Art and Music of Bill Steber and Friends [is] a documentary that returns the filmmaker to the Tennessee/Mississippi territory that has provided especially fertile soil for his art. The most momentous of Mugge’s more-or-less-local films was probably Deep Blues (1991), which introduced viewers to such previously neglected...artists as Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside. The title of Mugge’s new film is an intentional echo. The blues acolyte/enthusiast/evangelist name-checked in the title…is a Murfreesboro, Tennessee-based photographer, musician, and painter. Steber, Mugge said, is ‘a guide into this world that he loves to document, this world that he inhabits’ and, through his artistic interpretations, 'helps to create.’”
 - John Beifuss, Memphis Commercial Appeal (May 4, 2025)

Click for Memphis Commercial Appeal
feature story about May 7, 2025 world premiere

“Mugge has taken the profile approach with his latest motion picture, Deep Roots. On one level, it’s the story of a man, Bill Steber. But in truth, it’s the story of Steber’s passions, his creative pursuits, and the manner in which those elements come together to create a body of work and a mission. He brings to the mission the fervor of a religious zealot, the warmheartedness of a treasured friend, the scholarship of a learned academician, and—most importantly—the honest appreciation of the women and men who created the musical forms he reveres. Mugge captures the onscreen images and sounds in a way that’s deeply authentic. Music—as real as it gets—completes the picture.”
 - Bill Kopp, Living Blues Magazine (July/August 2025)

Click for entire Living Blues Magazine review

"If you’re interested in the blues, it’s impossible to miss the photographs, usually in black and white, of Bill Steber, which can be seen in numerous publications. [They have] not gone unnoticed by filmmaker Robert Mugge, who has just dedicated a 112-minute documentary to him titled Deep Roots... The film certainly explores Steber's journey, but also the musical traditions of the 1920s and 1930s, both Black and white, and the rural scenes of Tennessee and Mississippi. Part of the film takes place in Murfreesboro (southeast of Nashville), where Steber lives, and the other part in the Delta, including the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale and the Highway 61 Blues Museum in Leland. And to better illustrate the evocations of the pioneers of the blues, since Steber is also an excellent blues musician himself (singer and multi-instrumentalist), he is shown in action with three bands with which he regularly performs."
 - Daniel Léon, Culture Blues (October 28, 2025)

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"Robert Mugge's New Film, "Deep Roots: The Art and Music of Bill Steber and Friends"

"Deep Roots…is a 2025 documentary directed by the noted musicologist and filmmaker Robert Mugge. It is a joyous portrait of Bill Steber from Centerville, Tennessee, a real blues renaissance man. Steber is a photographer, raconteur, storyteller, artist, musician and sculptor—all of his many talents devoted to one thing—chronicling and celebrating blues culture in the American South, concentrating on Mississippi and Tennessee. Steber is an articulate and entertaining interviewee, his enthusiasm and passion for the blues coming across with every word. He also makes music with his three bands. Steber proves to be a capable singer and multi-instrumentalist. All in all, a fascinating film documenting the far-reaching impact of the blues on society, focusing on one of its most talented champions."
 - M. Hudson, The Sound View

Click for The Sound View Editorial Review
"Deep Roots: The Art and Music of Bill Steber and Friends"

"An engaging tribute to a wonderfully talented guy who has made the playing of, and celebration of, blues—and of Mississippi juke joint culture, in particular—a major theme… Deep Roots is an entertaining dive including musical performances by several of Bill’s groups and a look at his related ventures with photography and mixed-media artwork. It’s more than worth your time."
 - Joe Rogers, The Nashville Ledger (January 2, 2026)

Click for The Nashville Ledger article
"Take a ride with Hambone Willie to find 'Deep Roots'"