NYT op-ed on the unavailability of early gospel recordings

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Gospel's Got the Blues
By ROBERT DARDEN

Waco, Tex.

AT the Grammy awards on Sunday, viewers saw the marriage of old-time gospel and new: the classic artists Mavis Staples and the Blind Boys of Alabama performed a medley with a young musician, Kanye West, that included Mr. West's gospel-tinged hip-hop song, "Jesus Walks."

Blessed with a rock-solid foundation, contemporary gospel is thriving. In the past decade, new releases have been selling copies in the millions - a major milestone in a musical genre that emerged in the 1930's, when the songwriter Thomas Dorsey set the words of Sunday morning to the music of Saturday night. But the early gospel may soon be lost forever. Although albums by the legendary Mahalia Jackson are easy to find on CD, of the thousands of tracks recorded by less known greats like Clara Ward, the Sensational Nightingales, the Roberta Martin Singers, Sallie Martin, the Georgia Peach and the Spirit of Memphis, only a few are available.

Why is this music so difficult to find, or even hear, today? Although small gospel labels still release classics, and reissue labels like Document Records and Collectables have repackaged some Golden Age music, these companies don't have the wide distribution of the major labels and mostly depend on mail and Internet orders. In fact, catalogs of early gospel labels are mostly owned by the large corporations that dominate the music industry. For the most part, these companies have released only a few classic albums on compact disc.

For an unabashed fan like me, it's a painful situation. I realize that no corporation is going to put out albums just to please a few aficionados, but they may not realize that many people want to hear this music. Each time I do a radio interview and play a classic gospel song, the phone lines immediately light up. The callers need to discuss what this music has meant to them. They invariably ask where they can buy it and most of the time I have to tell them they can't.

Classic gospel can experience the same success that major-label reissues of jazz and blues have enjoyed in the last two decades. It was once difficult to find the jazz masters, but reissues of John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and dozens of others have brought labels renewed sales, a new audience and critical acclaim. These reissues came about because of the aggressive lobbying by jazz lovers and the foresight of a few label executives. The same can happen with early gospel.

Music historians should also get involved: major record labels can form alliances with archivists like the Smithsonian, Rounder Records and the Library of Congress. Each day, irreplaceable master tapes deteriorate, get lost, or are simply tossed out.

It would be more than a cultural disaster to forever lose this music. It would be a sin.

Robert Darden, an assistant professor of English at Baylor University, is the author of "People Get Ready! A New History of Black Gospel Music."