Black Gospel Music Restoration Project

[Hardbopjazz]

Did anyone happen to catch this program on NPR radio? This was a wonderful program discussing how about 70% of gospel music recorded from 1945 to 1970 has been lost and how this one man is on a mission to fine all this music and digitally perserve the music. I'm not a fan of gospel music, but the thought that 70% of this music may have been lost forever is a sad event.

Here is the link to the radio show.

NPR

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Thanks very much for posting that HBJ.

I didn't find the radio programme, but I did find a link explaining the project and I registered on the basis that I could loan the project some materials. So we'll see if I can help.

MG

[Hardbopjazz]

Thanks very much for posting that HBJ.

I didn't find the radio programme, but I did find a link explaining the project and I registered on the basis that I could loan the project some materials. So we'll see if I can help.

MG

There is a button on the page that says, listen now. That's how I came across it.

[AllenLowe]

I'm wondering, because there are TONS of recordings from that period of gospel that are preserverd, lots of commerical issues - of course, gospel music means many things - primarily, in the commercial sense, it indicates secular versions of religious music, and there's quartet gospel, congregational, streetcorner, guitar evangelist gospel - not trying to be a wise-asss but I wonder how he covers it all and how he defines the segments,as I personally have MANY cds from that era - also there's lots of southern white gospel (much more poorly documented in the classic sense than African American gospel) - will have to check this guy out -

Edited December 26, 2007 by AllenLowe

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Indeed, and I wonder whether the project is looking at Gospel from Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria or the West Indies?

MG

[Stereojack]

I heard the program as it was aired. While I admire the man's intentions, it was obvious that he was largely unfamilar with most of the discographical research that has already been done in this area. Several times he guessed as to the recording dates of selections that he played, when a simple glance at the Hayes & Lawton Gospel discography would have provided the answers. He also was unfamilar with labels that are well known to most collectors. Hopefully, the airing of this program will put a number of more knowledgeable collectors and researchers in touch with him. I know several serious gospel music collectors, and I believe that the 70% is a gross exaggeration.

[Hardbopjazz]

I asked Robert F. Darden, the professor running this project to reply to the comments here. We'll wait and see.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I heard the program as it was aired. While I admire the man's intentions, it was obvious that he was largely unfamilar with most of the discographical research that has already been done in this area. Several times he guessed as to the recording dates of selections that he played, when a simple glance at the Hayes & Lawton Gospel discography would have provided the answers. He also was unfamilar with labels that are well known to most collectors. Hopefully, the airing of this program will put a number of more knowledgeable collectors and researchers in touch with him. I know several serious gospel music collectors, and I believe that the 70% is a gross exaggeration.

Well, I suspect there may be a lot of stuff that never came out on LPs (or even that did) from the sixties that is "lost" to the extent that it doesn't and, but for this project never would, exist in digital form. Sure, collectors have got this stuff - Hayes & Laughton probably know (or knew) who. But it's not much good if it can't be generally accessed.

MG

[JSngry]

Yeah, when he talked about a label being now-owned by Seagrams, I was pretty sure he was referring to Peacock, but then he starts talking about no, it was probably some local Seagram's distributor who had his own label, and then I'm all like UH-oh, and then he gives the date of the Little Richard thing as early-50s and, oops, there I went again, but still it seems like an well-intentioned project and yeah, there are undoubtedly tones of "local" type material that is in danger of being lost, so here's wishing him well as well as wishing him - and me - an ongoing education.

[John L]

If "lost" means "out of print," then 70% would even be an underestimation.

Otherwise, it is difficult to understand. If we include all live concerts, then more than 70% of all jazz has also been lost.

It is true that there is probably a lot of great unheard stuff in the Peacock and Savoy vaults that is gathering dust. But 70%? When Fantasy bought out the Speciality label and essentially cleaned out the vaults, the net addition of new music was maybe 15-25 percent.

[Christiern]

The 70% claim set up a red flag. I get the impression that this is a project based on ignorance. If there really is that percentage of "lost" or unissued gospel recordings, Darden must be talking about private tapes made by members of choirs or congregations--there are miles of those, I'm sure. I hope Darden responds to HBJ's request.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

The 70% claim set up a red flag. I get the impression that this is a project based on ignorance. If there really is that percentage of "lost" or unissued gospel recordings, Darden must be talking about private tapes made by members of choirs or congregations--there are miles of those, I'm sure. I hope Darden responds to HBJ's request.

Well, I doubt if stuff recorded by firms like Specialty, Peacock or Chess, for example, can be what this project is interested in. Those firms, and some others, all ended up in the hands of other companies - generally because they were interested in the other stuff that had been recorded by the original companies - and if owned by Universal or Concord, can't be regarded as lost. Even so, what of artists like the Cherebin Gospel Singers, the Stripes of Glory, Ralph Skipper (inc in my BFT), or Little Sammy Stevens and the Gospel Organ (and what I wouldn't pay for that fabulous single!), who each made only one 45 for Peacock/Songbird and which are somewhere in the Universal vaults. Isn't it true to say that material is, to all intents and purposes, lost? (Even though I don't think that is the focus of the project.)

But there have always been lots of labels specialising in Gospel, or which did little of any interest apart from Gospel, that no one would have thought of buying. And those labels just disappear into the ether. Who owns the masters of small labels like Missouri? Or Colt? Or much larger ones like Bibletone, which issued hundreds of Gospel and Sacred (and some Classical) recordings between 1945 and 1958? Or Tennessee/Republic, which issued hundreds of singles (inc R&B & C&W) between 1950 and 1956?

I have a strong feeling, seeing their entry in the ARLD dating guide, that there may have been more Bibletone issues than Specialty Gospel singles. Whether any of it is any good, I can't say - I've never come across any. But I can't see a company lasting 13 years making nothing but crappy Gospel and Sacred recordings; there must have been some good stuff in there.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I've posted a link to this thread on the Blindman's Blues Forum, where there are several serious collectors who may be interested.

http://blindman.forumhoster.com/index.php?showtopic=22974

MG

[John L]

The 70% claim set up a red flag. I get the impression that this is a project based on ignorance. If there really is that percentage of "lost" or unissued gospel recordings, Darden must be talking about private tapes made by members of choirs or congregations--there are miles of those, I'm sure. I hope Darden responds to HBJ's request.

Well, I doubt if stuff recorded by firms like Specialty, Peacock or Chess, for example, can be what this project is interested in. Those firms, and some others, all ended up in the hands of other companies - generally because they were interested in the other stuff that had been recorded by the original companies - and if owned by Universal or Concord, can't be regarded as lost. Even so, what of artists like the Cherebin Gospel Singers, the Stripes of Glory, Ralph Skipper (inc in my BFT), or Little Sammy Stevens and the Gospel Organ (and what I wouldn't pay for that fabulous single!), who each made only one 45 for Peacock/Songbird and which are somewhere in the Universal vaults. Isn't it true to say that material is, to all intents and purposes, lost? (Even though I don't think that is the focus of the project.)

But there have always been lots of labels specialising in Gospel, or which did little of any interest apart from Gospel, that no one would have thought of buying. And those labels just disappear into the ether. Who owns the masters of small labels like Missouri? Or Colt? Or much larger ones like Bibletone, which issued hundreds of Gospel and Sacred (and some Classical) recordings between 1945 and 1958? Or Tennessee/Republic, which issued hundreds of singles (inc R&B & C&W) between 1950 and 1956?

I have a strong feeling, seeing their entry in the ARLD dating guide, that there may have been more Bibletone issues than Specialty Gospel singles. Whether any of it is any good, I can't say - I've never come across any. But I can't see a company lasting 13 years making nothing but crappy Gospel and Sacred recordings; there must have been some good stuff in there.

MG

Interesting, MG. I will be very interested to hear what becomes of this project.

[Hardbopjazz]

The 70% claim set up a red flag. I get the impression that this is a project based on ignorance. If there really is that percentage of "lost" or unissued gospel recordings, Darden must be talking about private tapes made by members of choirs or congregations--there are miles of those, I'm sure. I hope Darden responds to HBJ's request.

He did reply to me and he even took a look at this thread as it was forming yesterday. I will ask him to chime in the discussion.

I always believe, all music should be preserved for the ages. If anyone here can help, even if it is one recording, we've done our good deed for the day

[Hardbopjazz]

From Mr. Darden

December 26

Dear Mr. Ferrara:

Thank you for your e-mail. Thanks too for the link to the very

interesting discussion you've started.

The estimate that 75 percent of all recorded black gospel music is

lost, out of print, currently unavailable, or held in record company vaults

by labels that have no interest in ever re-releasing the music came

from lots discussions at different times with Ray Funk, Bob Marovich,

Opal L. Nations, Kip Lornell, Doug Seroff, Jerry Zolten and a few others

... it was an average of their estimates.

I do know that we just received 200 LPs from a previously unknown

collector in Kansas City and when we finished cataloguing them yesterday --

we found less than half were in Laughton's wonderful book ... so I know

we have a LOT of work to do!

Thanks for your interest in the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project.

Sincerely,

Robert

Robert Darden, Associate Professor of Journalism

One Bear Place #97353

Baylor University

Waco, TX 76798-7353

254/710-7414

December 27

I appreciate your kind words and supportive spirit, Tom. I certainly

don't believe I'll live to see the end of this project. Someday, I hope

to get all of the big dozen or so collectors to let us have access to

their collections for posterity's sake (since we'll never sell these or

make them otherwise commercially available) and see just how many

recorded gospel songs there really are out there!

I'll try to weigh in on the discussion if there's anything I can add --

I'm not really good with the computer stuff, I'm afraid!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Thanks for posting that, HBJ

MG

[JSngry]

Yeah, this was telling, I thought:

I do know that we just received 200 LPs from a previously unknown

collector in Kansas City and when we finished cataloguing them yesterday --

we found less than half were in Laughton's wonderful book ... so I know

we have a LOT of work to do!

The fact of the matter is that although a lot of this music's recordings took place in (or on the fringes of) a "conventional" commercial arena (Peacock, Savoy, Apollo, Specialty, etc.), due to the nature of both its intent and its audience, I'd not be surprised to find out that a lot of it got made locally/regionally for a very specific audience and that it never dented the consciousness of anybody other than that immediate audience.

Which means that, yeah, there really might be a lot of work to be done!

[Hardbopjazz]

Some more infor from Robert.

December 29

What a great tip! Thanks -- I'd never heard of them. I'm afraid us old

academics don't get out much.

I enjoyed reading the comments in your discussion site. They were, of

course, right about the Little Richard date. We sent Terri Gross

snippets of a LOT of songs and didn't know which ones she'd play, much less

what questions she'd ask. (We taped it live, with no do-overs, and she

used about 35 minutes out of our hour conversation.) So when she got to

the date question, I was frantically motioned to Tony Tadey for help!

We've since checked all of the dates we could find in the Laughton book.

The Seagram's question was another where the answered got a little

garbled -- I was actually answering to two related questions and they were

spliced together.

Interviewing someone is a heckuva lot easier than having them interview

you!

We have received more than 120 e-mails and calls so far, about half

offering to loan or donate materials our way. We've already received some

extraordinary 78s and 45s, which are NOT in Bob's book.

Again, thank you for your kind interest and support... you've been very

generous with your time.

Robert

[JSngry]

Sounds like a good guy doing necessary work.

:tup :tup

[Stereojack]

Upon reading Darden's response, it is obvious that the editing oif the Fresh Air interview made him seem less knowledgeable that he apparently is. He is already in touch with several of the major gospel researchers/collectors, so it pleases me that he is farther along than I originally thought.

[Hardbopjazz]

It's been well over a year since this topic was fist started. This project look so daunting and yet a wonderful challenge. I wonder how much jazz may have gone the way of the dodos for a lack of money and effort to preserve the music?

Some update.

main page

[JSngry]

- also there's lots of southern white gospel (much more poorly documented in the classic sense than African American gospel) -

Just got back from Southern Ohio, came back with 15 LPs from my wife's cousin's house, JD Sumner, Stamps Quartet, Hovie Lister & The Statesmen, all mid 60s to early 70s...more mixed emotions than I think I can handle...Implicitly Segregationist Christian & Hairspray Cornball comes through, but so does a deep Southern Soulfulness, and all just about equally...all I can think about is how "my people" could be so wrong and so right about life in general at the same time...I didn't ask to be put in the middle of all this, and would very easily let all the good shine and get rid of the rest faster than fast, but there it is. Answers a lot of questions, raises that many more...

I will say this, though - Hovie Lister...he plays these 4 bar piano intros that sound - and damn near feel - like Horace Silver and then he's back in line. And his vocal arrangements, sometimes there's this one, just one, WTF chord...This guy..I think he led a life, if you know what I mean...