Before I get to the clip, some background. My first meeting with Bob Darden of the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project was in Chicago, August 2009. During our sit down interviews it became clear very quickly that I would have … Continued
Robert Darden’s excellent book, People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music, is one of those books that educates and entertains. If you’re interested at all in gospel music or American roots music, this is a must read. … Continued
I wrote a post about summing up A Life’s Work in one word: legacy. But there is another word that runs a close second: wonder. The work Robert Darden, Paolo Soleri, Jill Tarter, and David and Jared Milarch do keeps them … Continued
So having thought long and hard about what makes Gimme Shelter such a great film, this led me to thinking about another Maysles film, Grey Gardens, and what makes that so exceptional. I’ve written about Grey Gardens here and on … Continued
A Life’s Work’s Robert Darden wrote a post on his blog this week about what it feels like to complete a book he’s been working on for six or seven years. The book, Nothing But Love in God’s Water: The Influence … Continued
Did you hear Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday? If not, check out the interview. It’s well worth 25 minutes and 26 seconds of your life. I don’t know why it surprises me, but Fresh Air’s Dave … Continued
When I was looking for subjects for A Life’s Work, I always considered a collector in search of a holy grail object. In the early days I thought I’d like to include someone like a film historian searching for, say, … Continued
I recently posted an article about Robert Darden on the A Life’s Work Facebook page. (There you will find news that is relevant to the subjects of the film but are not inspiration for blog posts. If you haven’t “Liked” … Continued
Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I’ve been listening to the University of California, Berkeley’s radio station, KALX. It’s a listener-sponsored, freeform station, which means it doesn’t have commercials or underwriting (what’s the difference?) and the DJs (who are … Continued
In the last post, I offered up a clip featuring Bob Darden speaking about why so much gospel music is missing. The clip I posted runs almost four minutes. I had a longer cut, but I thought it was running … Continued