Derek Smith:
hi there and welcome to Baylor Connections, a dialog series with the americans shaping our future. each week we go in-depth with Baylor leaders, professors, and more discussing vital subject matters in higher education, analysis and student existence. i'm Derek Smith and our visitor these days is Robert Darden. Bob Darden serves as professor of journalism, public members of the family and new media at Baylor. he is a author, author of a large number of articles and short reviews, posted author of greater than two dozen books and a nationally diagnosed skilled on black gospel song. Three of his books, people Get capable!, and the primary and 2d volumes of Nothing however Love in God's Water, are seminal histories of the tune and its affect. he's the founder of the Black Gospel music Restoration venture at Baylor, which houses hundreds of digital copies of traditional black gospel tune, conserving the historic sounds for future generations. Dozens of information retailers, including The long island instances, NPR, the new Yorker, and greater have lined his work, and choices from the challenge have been protected within the everlasting exhibit within the Smithsonian's national Museum of African American history and subculture in Washington. Darden has won a lot of surprising professor awards all the way through his time on the Baylor faculty and he's right here with us today on the software. Bob Darden, it's brilliant to have you here on the program.
Robert Darden:
Delighted to be right here.
Derek Smith:
You understand, we're right here within the KWBU studios the place I interviewed you over 10 years in the past when this turned into only a dream, and or not it's impressive to see how a long way it's come and thousands upon heaps of copies of song preserved.
Robert Darden:
I bear in mind, in October we passed 14,000 items digitized. Which makes us greater than the Library of Congress in this container.
Derek Smith:
that's wonderful, and or not it's receiving that sort of cognizance for the have an impact on or not it's having on protecting this track, and have an impact on has grown in a number of techniques. however I want to ask you, in case you might go again to 2005, i know you wrote a chunk in the long island instances speakme about the need to preserve this song. if you might go lower back then and tell your self one piece of tips from the longer term about the place the project is now or the way it's impacted people, the way it's impacted the tune, what's one incontrovertible fact that if you may have told your self about 15 years in the past would have blown your mind the most?
Robert Darden:
hold on to your hat. I had no theory how quickly, how robust, how complete this mission could be in such a comparatively short amount of time. I don't need to get too esoteric right here, Derek, but naturally, God's hand became on this and that i turned into just the automobile through which this flowed.
Derek Smith:
You spoke of over 14,000 pieces. I imply, it changed into 15 years ago that the idea got here along. it truly is just about over three digitizations a day for neatly over a decade. that's in fact excellent. For people who could've heard of the Black Gospel song Restoration mission or probably have not, might you provide us a little little bit of a rundown of the thought and how this got here together?
Robert Darden:
certain. The article in the big apple times said that seventy five% of all gospel song vinyl from the Golden Age turned into lost, whether through neglect, attrition, landfills, litigation, racism. When the piece ran, a gentleman named Charles Royce in long island known as me and pointed out, "You work out a way to reserve it and that i'll pay for it." So I did the component that sensible lecturers do. We go to the libraries since the library is the one region everybody trusts in academia. As Pattie Orr says, "they may be variety of like Switzerland in the tutorial universe," and noted, "Guys," invoice Hair, Darryl Stuhr, and Tim Logan noted, "Guys, what can we do?" and that they spoke of, "we can do that." We spent the subsequent many months inserting collectively what became then and now, the world's most beneficial digitization studio to identify, acquire, digitize, catalog, scan, and maybe in the future make obtainable this fast vanishing legacy of gospel song. The awesome maj ority of what we've is vinyl, but we do have another codecs as well. About three years ago we pivoted a bit of to consist of African American preaching as neatly.
Derek Smith:
In lots of ways in which obviously tells the story of the ... the African American story. The music tells it as neatly. The preaching does as well, so a natural fit there.
Robert Darden:
neatly, all preachers sing and all singers preach within the black church, and in an era when African americans had perhaps a half dozen newspapers, no publication publishers, no tv stations, controlled no radio stations, tune changed into one of the vital few avenues of both expression in recording background. it is a window into a tradition we comprehend little or no about because of the systemic racism that existed within the nation at the time.
Derek Smith:
we will dive into that right here in a few minutes, but i am curious for you. When did black gospel music first ... when did it first get ahold of you?
Robert Darden:
i was born in an Air force family and the united states Air drive changed into built-in with its founding, lone of all the major functions. My pals' residences, which we have been out and in of for the first 18 years of my existence, that was the tune that became being performed. It very at once grew to become the soundtrack of my existence, and gospel and soul and R&B collectively. i'd ultimately write about it so an awful lot that I grew to become gospel track editor for Billboard journal in ny for 15 years, and later after I went on tenure track at Baylor in 1999, I at last bought to jot down about what had been my passion when you consider that childhood and that is the reason the place americans Get equipped!: a new historical past of Black Gospel tune got here from, and it be been enjoying in my vehicles and in my bedrooms and in my existence ever because.
Derek Smith:
obviously, the song bought a grasp of you as a teen. When did you start to realize its significance as a chronicle of the African American event and truly in so a lot of the 20th century?
Robert Darden:
it truly is a very good query. I don't suppose that you can inform the story of american popular song without beginning with the music of Africa. African rooted track is the basis of all American standard music. And in case you watched the Ken Burns element, the collection on country music, you comprehend it's one of the crucial legs of the stool that shaped country and Western music as well. but you can not get to rock and roll or rap, or hip hop, or jazz, or anything else in case you don't move through African American tune.
Derek Smith:
visiting with Bob Darden right here on Baylor Connections, and you outlined your adventure, gospel tune editor at Billboard. i'm guessing someplace in there is if you happen to started to delivery talking to the individuals who lived the music, who created it, who have been influenced it. Take us interior some of those studies, what was that like?
Robert Darden:
That was striking. i might say accident, however I suppose on reflection now God's hand changed into on all of this. My first job out of the college of North Texas the place I acquired a graduate diploma, turned into at the Waco Tribune-Herald. on the time, 1978 Waco also came about to be home with notice information, which was the realm's greatest Christian tune checklist label and e-book publisher. and since it had divisions that covered African American song, these artists would periodically come to city. I had friends at be aware, exceptionally Lois Ferguson and Jarrell McCracken, who would say, "hey, Shirley Caesar's coming into town to focus on contracts or whatever, would you want to interview her?" And so, when I obtained the name from Billboard about 1984 I consider, I already had respectable portfolio of interviews with one of the most legends of gospel track. And so, the Billboard column referred to as, the Gospel Lectern, relatively much required me to spend every wee k on contemporary Christian song, which is what notice became most universal for, and then gospel. each and every week i might do one or the different and it enabled me to confer with each person from Pop Staples to Albertina Walker on the gospel facet, and on the modern Christian facet, which become less of a fondness however was emerging on the time, Amy supply and Russ Taff, and the others.
Derek Smith:
this is Baylor Connections visiting with Bob Darden, Baylor professor and founder of the Black Gospel song Restoration undertaking. As you started talking to the people involved with the track, what were one of the vital subject matters that basically deepened your appreciation, whether it be reports or just belongings you heard many times?
Robert Darden:
neatly, attending to consult with some of my heroes. i'm certain I appeared like just a babbling fanboy to some of them, however it changed into miraculous to me that without exception, all of them had had some ties within the civil rights circulate. I do not suppose you may well be an African American from the Nineteen Forties '50s and '60s with out it both touching you or in most cases fitting in some way an active participant. one of the issues that struck me become studying the brilliant histories of the civil rights circulation. I've examine all of them, accept as true with me, including Taylor department's towering, the King Years, how little the artist and the song are outlined and when they're, it be regularly faulty. A neatly-intentioned white reporter from The big apple times at a church service would not be aware of the change between a classical hymn, a religious, a gospel track, and yet as I began to do these first-grownup interviews, I started to find out that gospel music, freedom songs and spirituals had been on the heart of everything that came about, and that's the reason how the books, Nothing but Love in God's Water: Black Sacred song from the Civil struggle to the Civil Rights circulation, took place. Say Birmingham, the epicenter of the civil rights circulation within the early Nineteen Sixties, the mass meetings at night in assorted churches because they failed to want individuals to grasp the place they were going to be as a result of getting bombed, would start about 3:00 within the afternoon, people would birth gathering to get a seat. they'd delivery singing spontaneously. they might sing to about seven o'clock when the pastor would come and give them some directions, "We need 50 individuals arrested tomorrow. We need a hundred people to carry bail. We want 30 of you to go downtown at the moment." Then King or Abernathy or Shuttlesworth would exhibit up on this route of distinctive churches and preach for approximately forty five m inutes, after which they would sing, and they might sing every so often with track leaders, every now and then spontaneously, frequently with gospel artists within the congregation except roughly 10 o'clock at nighttime. Then they'd exit in that sizzling Alabama, sultry evening surrounded via every paramilitary company, racist sheriff on this planet, to discover their vehicle sabotaged and salt of their gas tanks, and they might sing all of the means domestic. So on the pivotal time in African American background in this country, they are spending 75% of their time singing. And or not it's now not devoid of intention. You do not devote that a great deal time until it matters, and that is the reason what I found from these artists over and over again.
Derek Smith:
definitely, it formed the soundtrack, if you will, of the civil rights flow. You be aware of suppose of one of the vital songs that inform of pleasure amidst the pain, in what manner do you believe those songs metal the americans worried for that pivotal second in history?
Robert Darden:
I seem back at one of the vital interviews we did in Birmingham, in Chicago and different areas, and i would ask them questions concerning the movements of what turned into going on and they may bear in mind a bit. i might ask them about politicians, they could remember a bit. i might ask them about sermons, they could bear in mind a bit, however as quickly as I obtained into the track, they may inform me what they sang, the place they sang it, and why they sang it? The selected songs that got here up over and over once again, above all in say Birmingham, which is doubtless the premier commonplace, could be songs like, Ain't no person Gonna flip Me around. They sang it in instances of defiance. They sang it in times when they necessary hope. In Selma after the horrible routine of Bloody Sunday, assembly in Brown Chapel, most of them bleeding. John Lewis with a fractured skull sitting there and somebody from a pew mendacity on their back when it became stone silence at midnight, st arted singing once again, Ain't nobody Gonna flip Me around. Then there are others like Steal Away, Steal Away to Jesus, which is a religious, had been a extremely defiant music. They thought they had been speaking about faith, the slave owners, however what they have been speaking about changed into getting throughout the Ohio River. Then, of path, the one that we recognize optimal nowadays, we will Overcome. the place now is at all times sung standing with fingers linked, and an instantaneous tie lower back to those instances, we shall overcome, may also be each hope and defiance and a non secular cry.
Derek Smith:
or not it's stunning to think about the manner the songs, you be aware of, the impact they've had on American background, and additionally unbelievable to think that in lots of ways this music was in danger of being misplaced. probably the most massive identify songs you've outlined obviously have lasted, but there is so many who definitely you realized had been critical, that had been in hazard of being lost. You outlined this a bit at the proper of the display, however what have been one of the vital challenges in making certain this song become preserved and never, like you referred to, locked away on a dusty shelf somewhere or thrown out by a family unit getting into a brand new condo?
Robert Darden:
smartly, the digitization lab and the outstanding engineers that we have there, and when I say, "We," i'm speaking the royal we, I do not basically play with any of the toys. They don't want me anywhere close when they may be doing the work. however when Darryl Stuhr or Steve Bolech or Travis Taylor, or the normal Tony Tadey, would delivery working via this, as we'd discover a disc in a undeniable kind of circumstance that we wanted, which is all of them, and we didn't have the equipment to repair it, distinctive angels would step forward and pay for it. sometimes Baylor, but nearly always people. Ella Prichard, as an example, has made bound that we've had what now we have crucial to make this turn up. greater than the actual actual reclamation of those discs, and now tapes and people bad eight-tracks and cassettes, is that changing the mindset of people. the place now, many of the heroes of the civil rights circulate are tremendous-grandmothers and outstanding-grandfathers, and s o the youngsters do not always be aware of the cost of the stuff this is in the piano bench or up in grandma's attic. So one of the motive when any firm ask me to talk, no count how small, I always say yes as a result of I under no circumstances know if in that box that someone went and grandma's attic spying, is a track that now we have certainly not considered, we have now never heard, however I actually have heard about it, spoken of in reverent terms for 40 years. I don't know what percentage of all gospel music we now have. there isn't a method to know because there is no database ever created. there may be one on every different kind of music, however not gospel track. So I don't know that our 14,000 objects are 1%, 10%, 20%. I simply recognize once I find a disc by means of an artist I have no idea, on a label I've in no way heard of, that potential there may be a different lengthy line of disc that we should not have. So the idea that we need to let individuals comprehend th e value of this song, this eternal record, in case you'll allow us to put it aside, just let us harvest the tune. I don't are looking to own your vinyl. hold that. If it truly is any variety of sentimental value to you. and looking out at these discs, some of which had been performed down to they seem like glass, they have been worn down so a whole lot. simply let me harvest that track earlier than it be long gone continuously. If I might get that message throughout, these other considerations are just technical considerations. The leading one is to alternate minds of individuals of what is cost.
Derek Smith:
surely, the work you might be doing and the song itself received I suppose a symbol of its price with The Smithsonian focus a number of years back with the outlet of the national Museum of African American background and lifestyle on the countrywide Mall in Washington. sooner or later you got a cellphone name. tell us about that.
Robert Darden:
The director, Dwandalyn Reece, who's nevertheless there, who turned into the top of the division of tune of the brand new museum, had heard about us and over a length of days we talked from side to side, let her comprehend what we had. She came down right here to Baylor at one factor, and Tim Logan and i went to Washington, D. C., showed what we had, in what kind we may make it attainable. The assistant director looked at it and regarded at the people within the room and observed, "Make it turn up," and needed to go on to one more meeting. And so, for the subsequent couple of years from side to side attempting to discover in what kind they essential this, how could we get that to them? Did they desire originals? Did they simply want digital copy? At one factor they were going to put an actual surviving African American record save within the museum, and that got modified later. but in the conclusion, asking me to birth with a hundred of the most gigantic, essential gospel songs, s pirituals, freedom songs. Then the following couple of years, "Oh, how about simply essentially the most 50?" Boy, that's complicated to return slender it down extra and extra, until ultimately they had to choose. And so, when my wife Mary and that i went to the museum on the day before it opened, and went as much as the room the place the gospel song is, for the primary time to look the disc that we had given them on the wall. to look the big table within the middle of the room the place you could touch a picture of an artist or a tune and have it come up throughout the massive audio system that stuffed the room. locate that five songs that we had cautiously preserved. one of which during this certain case, we now have the simplest customary replica. incidentally, we suppose about 70% of what we now have, we now have the best accepted reproduction, can be preserved always at the most standard museum in the world, which now you nonetheless have to get tickets for, despite the fact t hat it be free, four months in enhance. And for these artists who went in and sang for virtually no remuneration become one of the vital highlights of my existence.
Derek Smith:
Which song changed into that, that you can hear there, it truly is the just one?
Robert Darden:
The ancient Ship of Zion, and it has become some thing of our theme track since it turned into that one that when we all heard it the primary time, it turned into a self-love song that the neighborhood of men went into their church and sang, paid money, made a couple of disc copies, and ever considering the fact that there's anything haunting about it, partly because of circumstances. it be in a part of the nation, Aquasco, Maryland that had bad instances for African americans in both the Civil war and the civil rights move. And yet these guys, some of whom are nonetheless dwelling, we at last tracked him down, may go in a studio and say, "there is nothing but love in God's water, get on board, white or black," touched us and most people who hear it in a method it truly is hard to explain.
Derek Smith:
neatly, it truly is superb and we hope americans will make the effort to move out there, The Smithsonian. As we head into the closing short time on the reveal, Bob. As we're travelling with Bob Darden, professor at Baylor and founder of the Black Gospel song Restoration task, I want to ask you, from having been immersed in this tune for thus long, it carries, and i think you will have sort of painted this image, however I are looking to ask in particular, there is a lot of hope within the music, however additionally an excellent deal of struggling and injustice of the americans who wrote it, that they skilled. How should still we now, years later as we take heed to the song, method every thing that went into it as we hearken to and think about this music?
Robert Darden:
a couple of years in the past, there become an assault on the Civil Rights Act in Congress, and a gaggle of African American Congressman led by John Lewis, unable to cease what the vote turned into going to be, all started singing, we will Overcome. And automatically one of the crucial politicians on the different side and on definite television networks began to creating enjoyable of it, making fun of them, making light of it. I believe we should still technique this track after we hear it now with an figuring out that this tune has survived. a few of it for tons of and a whole lot of years, certainly the ancient freedom songs and spirituals, as a result of first off it works, however we may still understand that it survives as a result of God wills that it continue to exist when 1,000,000 different songs were misplaced. These songs have been burnished and been in the course of the flame, and the entire dross has been burned away. there's nothing left but an immediately remembera ble lyric and an immediately rememberable tune, tune that americans of any age, of any era, can sing and faucet into this 400 years look for human dignity and civil rights, and understand that this stuff matters. and also you make enjoyable of it or you brush aside it at your personal peril.
Derek Smith:
due to your work, it can't be brushed aside like it will had been previous. And as we close out the program, I say if people would like to be taught extra or hear some of this track, they can Google, Black Gospel song Restoration undertaking. Hear probably the most selections. if they Google, Heaven eleven, Bob Darden, Heaven 11, they can additionally find your seminal selections.
Robert Darden:
they could go to kwbu.org and Shout! Gospel track Moments a week on right here, on the radio station.
Derek Smith:
it truly is appropriate. kwbu.org, notable partnership that you've with them and that we have with them as neatly for this program. Thanks so lots, Bob Darden, and as we shut out the application here on Baylor Connections, we'll do so with only a moment of the music he outlined past, historical Ship of Zion. (old Ship of Zion singing)
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