Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Is Black Gospel Music Disappearing?


I heard this interview and then discovered this earlier interview on National Public Radio (NPR) with Robert Darden, former gospel music editor for Billboard magazine -- and now an assistant professor of English at Baylor University.

Darden is the author of the book, People Get Ready! A New History of Black Gospel Music, and is helping to head up the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project at Baylor University.

If you have vintage black gospel recordings that are no longer in circulation, Baylor University would like to add them to the collection of digitized music. If you loan them your albums or other early media, they will digitize the recording, and return to you a digital version along with your original.

Is traditional black gospel music becoming obsolete? You can help to preserve this part of American heritage. Has black gospel music had an impact on your life? Post a comment and let me know what you think.

The Photo of gospel legend, Mahalia Jackson, was taken by Carl Van Vechten.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would hate to see traditional black Gospel music disappear, because the same thing could happen to traditional white Gospel music (Southern Gospel) one of these days, too.

Israel Wayne said...

White Southern Gospel was inspired in many ways by black music. For example, Jake Hess and The Statesmen Quartet, THE definitive Southern Gospel quartet, was heavily influenced by black groups like The Ink Spots.