March daily: Baylor Gospel Archive
A treasure trove waiting for you to dig in
THIS WEEK, y’all. Concerts! Opera musical rehearsals! Search committee stuff! All the things. So this‘ll be short, but the subject of today‘s post right in my backyard so is both accessible and a point of immense pride.
Baylor University is home to the Black Gospel Music Preservation Program. According to the website:
The purpose of the BGMPP is to identify, acquire, preserve, record and catalogue the most at-risk music from the black gospel music tradition. This collection will primarily contain 78s, 45s, LPs, and the various tape formats issued in the United States and abroad between the 1940s and the 1980s…the ultimate goal is to have a copy of every song released by every black gospel artist or group during the target time period.
So far, there are 66,000 tracks and counting in the archive. And there‘s a celebration and symposium coming this month, including a tiny-desk-style concert at the archive on March 20 featuring artists Dwight Andrews and Kevin Bond.
Here‘s a piece about the archive from the DFW NBC station that aired today. Even in this short spot, you get the sense of how vital it is to preserve these records of praise and practice so that they don‘t disappear.
I take heart from the beauty and faith that has arisen and can arise up from humanity‘s worst actions. The story of these musicians is not my personal story, but their story intersects with mine and informs it. They are not separate.
Here are some examples from the collection.
It‘s amazing! Enjoy!
thanks for reading.
Thank you so much for shouting out the archive! I love being able to work with here and listen to this amazing music at work everyday. It's a very important program here at Baylor, and we're so grateful for support from faculty to help it grow and reach its potential.