Porgy and Bess was based on the music and dialect of the Gullah people of the Georgia Sea Islands.


"In the summer of 1933 Gershwin went to Folly Island in So. Carolina to live with the very primitive Gullah Negroes. This was the setting for DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy. Gershwin wanted to get a hands on experience of their existence, most especially their form of 'rhythmic shouting' during church services.
He attended their services religiously and became a first class shouter himself. There was no running water on Folly Island, no electricity - a far cry from his Manhattan mansion. Later he was asked why he did not use existing Negro spirtuals in Porgy & Bess. He commented that he wished the entire body of work to be of one fabric, therefore he wrote the spirtuals himself. He called the music an American 'folk opera'."

- Greer Firestone