[78-L] 78-L Digest, Vol 133, Issue 3

[Dennis Flannigan]

hooray for saving Black Gospel, lost to folks like me.

Dennis

On Thu, Oct 3, 2019 at 11:57 AM <78-l-request at klickitat.78online.com> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1.  Ernie Kovacs Record (Thomas Stern)
>    2.  How a Newspaper Article Saved Thousands of Black Gospel
>       Records From Obscurity (Rodger J Holtin)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2019 20:37:59 -0400
> From: Thomas Stern <sternth at attglobal.net.invalid>
> Subject: [78-L] Ernie Kovacs Record
> To: "ARSC" <ARSCLIST at LISTSERV.LOC.GOV>, "78-L Mail List"
>         <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Message-ID: <001a01d57982$cf8077b0$6e816710$@attglobal.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="us-ascii"
>
> I listened to the OMNIVORE CD reissue of THE ERNIE KOVACS RECORD (from
> Columbia Lp plus extra tracks).  Perhaps another senior moment, but I do
> not
> hear a routine I thought was on that Lp.
>
> IIRC it was part of the "answer man" routine, questioned about people
> falling off the edge of the (flat) earth.  Perhaps I am conflating
>
> It with a radio or TV episode.
>
> If you have the LP, wonder if you would listen and see if it is on the Lp
> ????
>
> THANKS!
>
> Thomas.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2019 21:22:15 -0500
> From: Rodger J Holtin <rjh334578 at gmail.com.invalid>
> Subject: [78-L] How a Newspaper Article Saved Thousands of Black
>         Gospel  Records From Obscurity
> To: "78-List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Message-ID: <005801d57991$6018bb30$204a3190$@gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="us-ascii"
>
> I thought some of you might enjoy this.  If you already knew about this
> project, this article which appeared today would be an update for you.
>
>
>
> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/archive-saved-black-gospel-golden-age
>
>
>
> //////////////////////
>
> How a Newspaper Article Saved Thousands of Black Gospel Records From
> Obscurity
>
>
>
> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/archive-saved-black-gospel-golden-age
>
>
>
> How a Newspaper Article Saved Thousands of Black Gospel Records From
> Obscurity
>
> A professor in Texas collects and digitizes rare recordings from across the
> country.
>
> BY SANTI ELIJAH HOLLEY
>
> SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
>
>
>
>
>
> FOR THE LAST DOZEN YEARS, in the basement of a university library in Waco,
> Texas, a small team of audio engineers has been busy trying to save black
> gospel music. On a typical day, after delicately removing a scuffed vinyl
> record from its tattered sleeve, an engineer cleans the disc, places it
> onto
> a specialized turntable, and drops the needle. A moment later, an
> exhilarating music rises from the speakers, filling the small room with
> voices not heard in half a century. Once the song has come to an end, the
> audio file is loaded into a digital archive, and the record joins thousands
> of LPs and 45s that are stacked wall-to-wall in a climate-controlled room
> at
> Baylor University.
>
>
>
> The current effort to preserve gospel recordings began in 2005, when Robert
> Darden, a journalism professor at Baylor, published an op-ed in The New
> York
> Times. He wrote that innumerable black gospel records, particularly from
> the
> "Golden Age" of the mid-1940s to the mid-70s, were at risk of being lost,
> whether because of damage or neglect. It was getting harder and harder to
> track down LPs of popular artists like the Soul Stirrers (who at one time
> featured a young Sam Cooke), to say nothing of 45s from largely obscure
> groups like the Gospel Kings of Portsmouth, Virginia. "It would be more
> than
> a cultural disaster to forever lose this music," Darden wrote. "It would be
> a sin."
>
>
>
> The Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, released this album of civil
> rights music in 1962.
>
> The Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, released this album of civil
> rights music in 1962. ROBERT ROGERS/BAYLOR UNIVERSITY
>
> Soon after publishing the op-ed, Darden was contacted by an investment
> banker named Charles Royce. Royce confessed he didn't know much about
> gospel
> music, but the opinion piece had convinced him that preserving it was a
> worthwhile endeavor. "You figure out how to save it," he said, according to
> Darden. "Send me a plan, and I'll pay for it."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ADVERTISING
>
>
>
> RELATED
>
> The Underground Kitchen That Funded the Civil Rights Movement
>
> Georgia Gilmore's cooking fueled the Montgomery bus boycott.
>
> READ MORE
>
>
>
> DARDEN FIRST BEGAN TO RECOGNIZE the crisis facing classic gospel music
> while
> working on his book, People Get Ready!: A New History of Black Gospel
> Music.
> He had previously worked as the gospel music editor for Billboard, and had
> written extensively on the genre, yet he often struggled to find the music
> he covered. "I'd been frustrated time and time again throughout the writing
> of the book, when I would write about a very important gospel song that had
> been influential in the history of gospel music, in some cases in popular
> music, and I couldn't listen to it," Darden says. "I'd go to the used
> record
> stores, and online, and everywhere I knew, and there just simply would not
> be a copy available."
>
>
>
> Darden and other record collectors estimated that around 75 percent of all
> gospel vinyl released during the Golden Age was no longer available. The
> records had been completely lost, or only a few remaining copies were known
> to be in circulation. Darden was determined to know how many of these
> records could be found, and how many were lost for good.
>
>
>
> After Darden came up with a plan to find and preserve these records, Royce
> provided a grant of $350,000. Darden got right to work, establishing the
> Black Gospel Music Restoration Project, or BGMRP, in 2007. Inside a
> sound-isolated room in the basement of Baylor's Moody Library, gospel LPs,
> 45s, and 78s are cleaned, archived, and digitized by audio engineers, using
> state-of-the-art equipment. After each disc is processed, it becomes
> available to stream for free online, alongside any available original
> artwork and recording details.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> One of the rare songs that Darden helped recover was "Old Ship of Zion,"
> recorded on a self-pressed 45 in the early 1970s by the Mighty Wonders, a
> group from Aquasco, Maryland. Darden recalls the first time he heard it:
> "Our engineer played it for me in the studio, and we both broke into
> tears."
> Found in a box of miscellaneous 45s purchased on the East Coast, Darden
> spent the next five years trying to track down any information about it.
> During a public radio interview in Baltimore, a child of one of the
> original
> members of the group called in and introduced himself. Darden learned that
> the group itself didn't even own a copy. Now one of the BGMRP's most
> cherished finds, "Old Ship of Zion" is featured in the gospel section of
> the
> National Museum of African American History & Culture.
>
>
>
> Most of the music in the archive was loaned by collectors across the
> country
> or purchased at record stores by Darden and his team, but some have come
> from individual donations. Anyone is welcome to send music, either as a
> permanent donation or a loan. Darden says that opening a new box of records
> is "like Christmas." Many of the records now in Baylor's library, like the
> "Old Ship of Zion" 45, are among the only known copies in existence, Darden
> says. He estimates that he and his team have digitized around 14,000 items,
> including songs, LP jackets, and photos.
>
>
>
> Darden recognized the crisis facing classic gospel music while working on
> his book, <em>People Get Ready!: A New History of Black Gospel Music</em>.
>
> Darden recognized the crisis facing classic gospel music while working on
> his book, People Get Ready!: A New History of Black Gospel Music. ROBERT
> ROGERS/BAYLOR UNIVERSITY
>
> In a 2007 interview, shortly after launching the project, Darden told the
> public radio host Terry Gross, "We see it as kind of like those seed banks
> up around the Arctic Circle that keep one copy of every kind of seed there
> is in case there's another Dutch elm disease. I just want to make sure that
> every gospel song, the music that all American music comes from, is saved."
>
>
>
> Darden, who is white, doesn't come from a traditional church background.
> With a father in the Air Force, he grew up moving with his family from base
> to base. His parents owned a record of Mahalia Jackson singing Christmas
> songs, but Darden remembers first hearing gospel music in the homes of his
> black friends, whose parents were also in the Air Force. "That was the
> music
> that their parents were playing and singing," he says. "I loved it from day
> one."
>
>
>
> Mahalia Jackson performs on stage in 1959.
>
> Mahalia Jackson performs on stage in 1959. GILES PETARD/GETTY
>
> The BGMRP focuses exclusively on music from gospel's Golden Age, the
> roughly
> 30-year period that saw gospel music surge in popularity, owing to the
> musical innovations of artists such as Clara Ward, Mahalia Jackson, the
> Swan
> Silvertones, and the Dixie Hummingbirds. Darden points out that gospel's
> Golden Age is also significant because it "corresponds with the era of the
> Civil Rights movement exactly, and it corresponds with the era of the
> greatest impact of the African-American church on the African-American
> community." He adds, "They're all intertwined. That's why gospel matters.
> This was the music of the revolution."
>
>
>
> Reverend Clay Evans, a Baptist pastor in Chicago who has worked as a civil
> rights leader and gospel recording artist, has powerful memories of the
> Golden Age. He was born in 1925 and recorded numerous albums in the 1970s
> and 80s*, mostly with the record labels Jewel and Savoy. "Gospel music
> motivated us," Evans says. "Music gave us hope. Hope that we needed to
> continue to overcome. Hope that we were on the right trail to overcome the
> racism that existed. Hope that God was with us in the struggle."
>
>
>
> Reverend Clay Evans leads members into the new Fellowship Missionary
> Baptist
> Church for opening day celebrations in 1973.
>
> Reverend Clay Evans leads members into the new Fellowship Missionary
> Baptist
> Church for opening day celebrations in 1973. CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY,
> SPECIAL
> COLLECTIONS
>
> These days, selections from Baylor's collection can be found in the
> National
> Museum of African American History & Culture, in Washington, D.C., as part
> of the museum's permanent collection. But to access the entire collection
> in-person, visitors to Waco can drop by Lev's Gathering Place, at Baylor
> University's Crouch Fine Arts Library. Sitting on a reclaimed church pew
> and
> stained-glass windows, visitors can view photos and listen to thousands of
> songs on iPad kiosks.
>
>
>
> In recent years, Darden and the BGMRP have begun another undertaking:
> archiving audio recordings of African-American preachers. Recorded sermons
> were once popular and profitable, especially leading up to and during the
> Civil Rights movement, but they too face the threat of being permanently
> lost. "Even less of that has been preserved," Darden says. "From the Civil
> Rights movement, for instance, with the exception of Dr. King, virtually
> none of the sermons that changed America are preserved. Or, when they are
> preserved, they're on somebody's cassette in somebody's warehouse in the
> South Side of Chicago."
>
>
>
> Visitors to Lev's Gathering Place, at Baylor University's Crouch Fine Arts
> Library, can sit on a reclaimed church pew and listen to thousands of
> classic gospel songs.
>
> Visitors to Lev's Gathering Place, at Baylor University's Crouch Fine Arts
> Library, can sit on a reclaimed church pew and listen to thousands of
> classic gospel songs. ROBERT ROGERS/BAYLOR UNIVERSITY
>
> Upon learning of this project, Reverend Evans dug out several boxes of his
> broadcast sermons, some decades old and long-neglected, from a derelict
> storage space near his church in Chicago. Now 94 years old, Evans has
> contributed over 900 tapes of his broadcast sermons to the archive. For
> him,
> digitizing and archiving these records is about not only preserving a
> fundamental part of American history, but also providing inspiration to
> present and future generations.
>
>
>
> "We face the same issues today, and we still need encouragement," Evans
> says. He sees parallels between today's struggles for social justice and
> the
> civil rights struggles of the past. "It's good for children to know what
> we've been through. Then they can be encouraged to make it through, too."
>
>
>
> *Correction: This article originally stated that Reverend Clay Evans
> released his first musical project with Savoy Records in 1985. Evans
> released albums with Jewel Records in the 1970s.
>
>
>
>
>
> ****************************
>
>
>
> Rodger Holtin
>
> 78-L Member Since MCMXCVIII
>
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> End of 78-L Digest, Vol 133, Issue 3
> ************************************
>


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