By Bob Marovich When his mother passed away in 2004, filmmaker David Licata began to ponder life’s timeless questions: What is our purpose on earth? What do we want to leave as a legacy? The result is a forthcoming documentary, A Life’s Work. Licata’s first feature-length project (he has completed two short films) showcases how several individuals have answered this question–by tackling a project so immense that they will not be completed in their lifetimes. After more than a decade of interviews and filming, A Life’s Work is in its final phases of production, with completion anticipated for the first quarter of ...

Baylor University art professor Terry Roller and his Art 4331 students took on a special assignment: Design custom album jackets for 45 rpm discs in Baylor’s Black Gospel Music Restoration Project, overseen by Professor Robert Darden. The students in Art 4331 came up with some very creative concepts – arguably as good, if not better, than what the major labels came up with for sleeves in the 1950s and 1960s. So…could these students be the next Alex Steinweisses, David Stone Martins, and Harvey Williamses?  Time will tell! Read the full article here: BGMRP Art

JGM Editor-in-Chief Bob Marovich was interviewed for this podcast on gospel music and the Civil Rights movement. Professor Robert Darden of Baylor University, Dwandalyn Reese of the Smithsonian Institution, and Professor Birgitta Johnson of the University of South Carolina School of Music are also interviewed for this podcast, part of the Kennedy Center’s ArtsEdge education program.  Richard Paul produced. Click on the image at left to hear or download a free copy of the audio podcast (episode 3).  

JGM’s editor-in-chief Bob Marovich and Professor Robert Darden of Baylor University were interviewed for this Baltimore Sun article by columnist Dan Rodricks about the elusive Mighty Wonders of Aquasco, Maryland. Read here: www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-rodricks-0125-20150124-column.html

Nothing But Love in God’s Water: Volume 1: Black Sacred Music from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement Robert Darden Penn State University Press (224 pages) By Bob Marovich “A singing army is a winning army, and a singing labor movement cannot be defeated.” So proclaimed labor leader John L. Lewis, and as Baylor University associate professor Robert Darden argues in his new book, Nothing But Love in God’s Water, the statement is equally relevant if “army” is replaced with “people” and “labor” with “civil rights.” Darden, former gospel editor for Billboard, author of the well-respected gospel music ...

By Bob Marovich Michael Castellini made ample use of the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project at Baylor University, and the counsel of gospel music historian Professor Robert Darden, to write his Master’s thesis on gospel music and the civil rights movement. In “Sit In, Stand Up and Sing Out!: Black Gospel Music and the Civil Rights Movement,” Castellini argues that many components of the African American church and  church community, in addition to black sacred music, helped fuel the flames of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The thesis is an engaging and thoroughly enjoyable read, providing a great ...