Gospel Music Historian Robert Darden

DATE December 20, 2007 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Robert Darden, founder of the Gospel Music Restoration
Project with old gospel recordings
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

We're going to listen to some great and, in some cases, rare gospel
recordings. my guest, Robert Darden, is the founder of the Gospel Music
Restoration Project at Baylor University in Texas, where he also teaches. His
goal is to digitize a copy of every black gospel recording made between 1945
and 1970, which he describes as the golden age of gospel. He's dealing with a
lot of 78s and 45s that were issued on small labels which no longer exist.
Darden is also the author of a book about gospel that was published a few
years ago called "People Get Ready." He was the gospel music editor at
Billboard magazine for 10 years.

Robert Darden, welcome to FRESH AIR.

Mr. ROBERT DARDEN: Oh, I'm delighted to be here.

GROSS: Before we talk about your gospel restoration project, let's start with
a recording. And the recording I thought we could start with is one of the
ones that you suggested. It's a State Choir of Southwest Michigan singing
"Going to Heaven to Meet the King." Tell us about this recording and its
significance.

Mr. DARDEN: Well, this was the first commercial recording--it's about
1961--of the choir, the Church of God in Christ, or COGIC. COGIC is one of
the big gospel music choir organizations across the country. Under the
direction of Mattie Moss Clark and the Clark sisters, Twinkie Clark and
others, are her daughters. And this is very rare, the early mass choir
recordings which were also usually just pressed for the choir members and
their churches, are hard to come by today.

GROSS: So this is the first commercially released version of that kind of
choir?

Mr. DARDEN: No. Part of the problem with the project is we don't know.

GROSS: Oh.

Mr. DARDEN: There's so little record keeping. We have no idea. This is one
of the first, and part of the problem is the mass choirs are so difficult to
tape and record in those old recording days. So there are very few. So this
is certainly the first with Mattie Moss Clark, and it's hard to come by. But
there may be earlier ones out there somewhere.

GROSS: Well, let's hear it. This is the State Choir of Southwest Michigan,
"Going to Heaven to Meet the King," recorded in 1961.

(Soundbite of "Going to Heaven to Meet the King")

Unidentified Woman: (Singing) I'm going to walk

Choir: (Singing) I'm going to walk

Woman: (Singing) Lord, I'm going to talk

Choir: (Singing) I'm going to talk

Woman: (Singing) And I'm going to sing

Choir: (Singing) I'm going to sing

Woman: (Singing) For the heavenly king

Choir: (Singing) For the heavenly king

Woman: (Singing) Oh, I want to be there

Choir: (Singing) When they march around the wall

Woman: (Singing) I want to be there

Choir: (Singing) When the general roll is called

Woman: (Singing) They'll tell me that the half

Choir: (Singing) Has never been told

Woman: (Singing) But the holy ghost

Choir: (Singing) Took control.

I'm going to walk

Woman: (Singing) For the Father

Choir: (Singing) Sing

Woman: (Singing) For the Son.

Choir: (Singing) Shout

Woman: (Singing) For the Holy Ghost.

Choir: (Singing) Three in one.

I'm on my way to heaven and I'm working to meet the king.

Just listen

Woman: Listen and let me tell you...

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's the State Choir of Southwest Michigan recorded in 1961.

That's really powerful.

Mr. DARDEN: You wonder how far away the microphone--and they're usually only
using one or two--have to be to keep from being overdriven from that big,
muscular, powerful sound by both the choir and the soloist. It's
extraordinary.

GROSS: Well, my guest is Robert Darden, and he heads the Gospel Music
Restoration Project at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

And what you're trying to do here is to digitize just all the gospel
recordings you could find between the years 1945 and 1970. Why are those the
years bracketing your project?

Mr. DARDEN: Well, we had to set some deliminations, and the early gospel
music stuff that is out of copyright has been well preserved because people
can make money on it. And the later stuff is not quite so hard to come by,
but during this classic era, particularly the 78s, 45s and the LPs, where
they're still in copyright, nobody seems to really care about because there's
no money to be made. So if it exists, it's in a warehouse. And if it's not
in the warehouse, it's in an attic, or maybe it's been long since tossed in a
landfill. But this is what we figured was the most at-risk era of all of
black gospel music.

GROSS: So if it's still under copyright, that means that record companies
still have the material license, probably, right?

Mr. DARDEN: Maybe. Maybe they don't. We spent two years trying to track
down one very fine label with some wonderful artists, and finally, after a two
year search, discovered that the label's rights were owned by Seagrams Liquor
of Germany, and spent another year trying to find somebody who knew what they
were talking about in Germany who spoke English, and finally got the gentlemen
on the phone. He said, `Yeah. Oh, yeah. I show we own it. It's in
America.'

GROSS: Part of this is like the conglomeratization of music. Seagrams bought
Polygram and Universal, and both those labels had already bought a lot of
smaller labels. Is that what you're running into?

Mr. DARDEN: In some cases. In some cases, it's just that maybe it was the
local Seagrams distributor, and he had gone bankrupt for other reasons and as
collateral, he had had a label that he had started or he and his family had
started on the side, and they had to put that up as collateral. It may not
have been anything that ever crossed the horizon for the main Polygram people,
but it was something one family had done that had a few dozen recordings and
now it's gone.

GROSS: Mm-hmm. So are you digitizing 45s that you find at flea markets as
opposed to being able to go to the vaults of the record companies?

Mr. DARDEN: Yeah. We have had no access to record labels yet. What we have
done is identified the 10, 15 biggest gospel music collectors around the world
and have approached them systematically and asked them if we may just make a
single digital copy of each piece of music that they have, and we'll return
the originals to them, we'll make them a digital copy if they would like. We
see it as kind of like those seed banks up around the Arctic Circle that keep
one copy of every kind of seed there is in case there's another Dutch Elm
disease. I just want to make sure that every gospel song, the music that all
American music comes from, is saved.

GROSS: Well, it's a big job. Big, big job--yes?

Mr. DARDEN: Right now, we're thinking that about 70 percent of all this
music is lost, unaccounted for, out of print, and not available for love or
money.

GROSS: Well, the period that you're trying to preserve, 1945 to 1970,
includes several years where secular music like rock 'n' roll and soul music
is so influenced by gospel, so I thought we'd hear a recording that you
brought with you of a rock 'n' roll pioneer who recorded gospel after he was
born again. So gospel probably influenced him and then he goes back and
records gospel, and this is Little Richard. Tell us the background to the
recording that we're going to hear, "Troubles of the World."

Mr. DARDEN: He fights this whole battle his whole career, and is still
fighting it now by my understanding, being torn between the sacred and the
profane. And at the very height of his career leaves rock 'n' roll and goes
back, gets a recording studio, pretty much self-finances a gospel album how he
thinks it needs to sound. And, caught up in the throes of the spirit, he puts
together this incredibly eerie, keening kind of opening, then brings in this
wonderful great mass muscular choir of men to sing behind him. And it really
sounds more Broadway than gospel, but I think it's one of the unique two
minutes and 30 seconds in all of wax right now.

GROSS: And do know who the female voice is that does the wordless vocal that
opens this track?

Mr. DARDEN: That is Little Richard.

GROSS: That's Little Richard? I thought it was a woman.

Mr. DARDEN: No, that is Little Richard.

GROSS: Oh, wow. That's really great. Great.

Mr. DARDEN: He learned it from Marion Williams, who I hope we'll hear later
in the show.

GROSS: Wow. Well, everybody's got to hear this. So this is Little Richard
recorded in what year?

Mr. DARDEN: We're hoping we can nail this down at some point, but I'm
guessing early '50s.

GROSS: OK.

(Soundbite of "Troubles of the World")

LITTLE RICHARD: (Vocalizing)

Choir: (Singing) Soon we will be done with
The troubles of the world
The troubles of the world
The troubles of the world
Soon we will be done with the
Troubles of the world.
Come home to hear we're done.

Soon we will be done with
The troubles of the world
The troubles of the world
The troubles of the world
Soon we will be done with the
troubles of the world.
Come home to hear we're done.

LITTLE RICHARD: (Singing) I want...

Choir: (Singing) I want...

LITTLE RICHARD: (Singing) ...to see my mother.
I want...

Choir: (Singing) I want...

LITTLE RICHARD: (Singing) To see my mother.
I want...

Choir: (Singing) I want...

LITTLE RICHARD: (Singing) To see my mother.

LITTLE RICHARD and Choir: (Singing) I'm going to live with God.

Choir: (Singing)
Soon we will be done with
The troubles of the world
The troubles of the world
The troubles of the world
Soon we will be done with
The troubles of the world
I'm going to live with God

LITTLE RICHARD: (Singing) I want...

Choir: (Singing) I want...

LITTLE RICHARD: (Singing) ...to see my father.
I want...

Choir: (Singing) I want...

LITTLE RICHARD: (Singing) I want to see my father.
I want...

Choir: (Singing) I want...

LITTLE RICHARD: (Singing) To see my father.

LITTLE RICHARD and Choir: (Singing) I'm going to live with God.

Choir: (Singing)
Soon we will be done with
The troubles of the world
The troubles of the world

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's Little Richard singing gospel, one of the recordings that my
guest Robert Darden has brought with him. He is the founder of the Gospel
Music Restoration Project at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and also author
of the book "People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music."

That's really an incredible recording. Is that a rare recording? Was it
difficult to find?

Mr. DARDEN: Yeah, any of the 45s from that era are hard to find,
particularly for the gospel. This is on a tiny little, probably self-financed
label called End.

GROSS: So how did you find it?

Mr. DARDEN: This is one of a number of recordings that were made available
to us by the gospel music collector and blogger Bob Marovich. He was the
first of the collectors we went to, and he's made available to us for
digitization his extraordinary collection of 45s and LPs. He also has a
gospel music radio show in Chicago.

GROSS: Why did you decide to start this Gospel Music Restoration Project?

Mr. DARDEN: As I was doing "People Get Ready," I kept coming across these
songs that everybody would cite as being influential, and then when I would
try to find them, either to buy or just to listen to, I couldn't.

GROSS: And so you figured you'd have to develop a database yourself?

Mr. DARDEN: Well, it's a kind of interesting story. I was so frustrated
that after the book came out, I wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times
that ran in February of '05 saying, you know, this is a sin, people, that we
have let this extraordinary legacy die, and future generations are going to
judge us real harshly. And that's when Mr. Royce called and said, `What do
we got to do?' So I studied it...

GROSS: This is the man who has funded your project?

Mr. DARDEN: Yes. Charles Royce in New York who doesn't know anything about
gospel music. In fact, the first thing I sent him was the Marion Williams,
"They Took My Lord Away," trying to explain why this was important. And he
said, `Do what you got to do, and I'll fund it.' So I studied the Arhoolie
collection, which is working with UCLA on the Mexican-American music like this
and found out what it would cost to set up a digitization lab and get a couple
employees for a few years, just so that if I was right about this, this
was--70 percent of this music is lost forever--that at least we can begin the
process of trying to save it. And that's just what happened.

GROSS: My guest is Robert Darden, the founder of the Gospel Music Restoration
Project at Baylor University in Texas. We'll talk more after a break. This
is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: My guest is Robert Darden, founder of the Gospel Music Restoration
Project. His goal is to digitize a copy of every gospel recording from 1945
to 1970.

You know, in talking about the kind of cross-pollination between gospel and
rock 'n' roll and soul music, there's another track that you brought with you
by the Little Lucy Smith Singers. Tell us about this and why you've chosen
it.

Mr. DARDEN: Well, this was the group's big hit back in the 1950s. Little
Lucy Smith was the granddaughter of elder Lucy Smith who founded Chicago's All
Nations Pentecostal Church, and we think this is the first African-American
preacher to get her own radio program. Little Lucy Smith is a keyboard
player, and she went on to accompany the Roberta Martin Singers. One of the
early members of this group is Gladys Beamon Gregory, who is considered one of
the best of Chicago's female gospel singers, which is a pretty big compliment
when you consider that's where Mahalia Jackson came from.

GROSS: There's something very girl group about this recording. And it's hard
for me to know whether this is the kind of influence that the girl groups
picked up on or whether this gospel group is influenced by secular music.
What era did you say this is from?

Mr. DARDEN: This is back in the early 1950s. It would not surprise me that
this kind of tough girl group sound would influence doo wop. Certainly doo
wop has huge amount of gospel influence. But again, they could have heard
this on the radio and said, `You know, that would be a nice fresh sound for
us,' too.

GROSS: So this is the Little Lucy Smith Singers, "Somebody Bigger Than You
and I."

(Soundbite from "Somebody Bigger Than You and I")

LITTLE LUCY SMITH SINGERS: (Singing) Who made the mountains, who made the
trees
Who made the rivers flow into the sea
And who hung the moon in the starry sky
Somebody bigger than you and I

Who made the flowers bloom in the spring
Who writes the song for robins to sing
And who made the rain when the earth is dry
Somebody bigger than you and I

He lights the way when the road is long

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's the Little Lucy Smith Singers, recorded in the 1950s, and my
guest is Robert Darden, the founder of the Gospel Music Restoration Project at
Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and his goal is to find and digitize every
gospel recording that was made between 1945 and 1970, a very difficult, if not
impossible, task.

How did you discover gospel music?

Mr. DARDEN: My father was promoted to lieutenant in the United States Air
Force, which, as you know, was the first of the services to be integrated.
And he went out with his $15-a-month raise, bought a little tiny hi-fi, and
had enough money left over to buy three LPs. And I think one of them was
Perry Como, and one of them was Mondo Cane movie themes. And the other was...

GROSS: Mondo Cane.

Mr. DARDEN: And the third one was Mahalia Jackson's Christmas album. And
the first time I heard that, my parents say, that I could not get that voice
out of my head. And being in the Air Force, which was intregrated, meant that
I was in and out of my friends' houses all the time, and I heard gospel from a
very early age regularly. And it's just been an endless quest for me to
continue trying to track down that voice and that thrill that it gave me the
very first time.

GROSS: Now, we should mention that you're white. Are there places that your
love of gospel music has taken you that you otherwise never would have been
exposed to?

Mr. DARDEN: There is a special treat to go to the black gospel churches in
this country where they treat you like a long lost son. You may be the only
white face in the auditorium, and to sit down and listen to music which has an
unbroken apostolic succession back to the spirituals and to hear artists that
are singing for the love of it--because God knows outside of Mahalia, none of
them ever made any money--to continue to do what they love and to try to
follow what they believe is a great commission. And it is a privilege every
time I do it.

GROSS: Is there a particularly interesting service that you've been to that
you could tell us about?

Mr. DARDEN: Oh, goodness. Yeah, I went to the Reverend Al Green's church in
Memphis.

GROSS: Oh, lucky you. Yeah.

Mr. DARDEN: People go to Graceland, but the better show's just a couple
miles up the road. It's a three and a half hour service. I was one of only a
couple white faces, with a couple of German and Japanese tourists, and the
choir comes in in their robes and their white gloves and this wonderful
staccato beat. He had an incredible choir, but even better band, with two
lead guitars and big Hammond B3 organ bass and drums. And every time try to
preach, somebody would get the spirit, usually the bass player or the keyboard
player, and they'd do this kind of vamp. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
And he'd get in the cadence of preaching, the preacher that day. And all of a
sudden, everybody would shoot up out of their seats, and the band would jump
in, and it'd take about 15, 20 minutes to get things calmed down again, while
the usherettes would be dancing in spirit circles, and everybody singing this
kind of wordless glossolalia, and the incredible beat going on. And he would
finally get people settled down again and begin preaching, and he'd get into a
kind a rhythm again, and all of a sudden, the bass player, do, do, do, do, do,
do. And it went on for three and a half hours.

GROSS: And what did you do, sit in your chair and watch or participate?

Mr. DARDEN: Well, I'm a drummer. I can keep a beat. I may be white, but I
can keep a beat.

GROSS: So, but did you just watch?

Mr. DARDEN: I jumped in time.

GROSS: Or did you jump up with everybody else?

Mr. DARDEN: I jumped and clapped--on the beat, I add.

GROSS: Well, let's hear another recording that you've brought with you from
the period that you're trying to preserve, 1945 to 1970. And this is a solo
recording by Marion Williams, who I believe is one of your favorite singers.

Mr. DARDEN: She is my all time favorite. People talk about Mahalia Jackson,
and the few times I've ever got the finger wag from black women is when I've
said Marion's better than Mahalia. This was recorded live in Tony Heilbut's
living room, by all accounts, on a cassette recorder.

GROSS: You describe this as a great example of surge singing in gospel. What
does that mean?

Mr. DARDEN: Surge singing is a carry over from back in the old days, what
they call Issac Watts singing, where Dr. Watts was the first of the popular
hymns that were being sung in American churches in the 16, 17, 1800s.
Everything else had been in that particularly
mournful...(unintelligible)...note kind of sound, and you couldn't tap your
toe and there's no room for improvisation. But the Issac Watts hymns, you
could. So where they could sing them--and as you know, slaves weren't allowed
to have religion, much less read through most of the history of slavery--they
would hear these songs and they would just love them because you could play
with the melody, you could stretch it out and you could add this indefinable
surge and beat. It was almost like an ocean sound coming out of the really
good singers. I think the first time I ever heard that was with Marion
Williams singing "Amazing Grace" on the Bill Moyers special, on "Amazing
Grace," and it just galvanized people. And she was one of the last of the
great practitioners of the old surge singing style.

GROSS: Do you know what year this recording is from?

Mr. DARDEN: Ooh, I would guess 1970.

GROSS: OK. This is Marion Williams, "They Led My Lord Away."

(Soundbite from "They Led My Lord Away")

Ms. MARION WILLIAMS: (Singing) Well, they led my Lord away
They led him away
They led him away
They led my Lord away
He never said a mumblin' word
They led my Lord away
He never said a mumblin' word
Hey, not a word, not a word did he say

Well, they whipped him up Calvary hill
Yes, they did

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Robert Darden is the founder of the Gospel Music Restoration Project
at Baylor University in Texas. He'll be back in the second half of the show.
I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite from "They Led My Lord Away")

Ms. WILLIAMS: (Singing) He never said a mumblin' word
They whipped him up Calvary's hill
He never said a mumblin' word

(Announcements)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Robert Darden, the
founder of the Gospel Music Restoration Project at Baylor University in Texas,
where Darden also teaches. His goal is to digitize one copy of every black
gospel recording made between 1945 and 1970. Many of them are 78s and 45s on
small labels that no longer exist. Darden is also the author of a history of
gospel called "People Get Ready." He was gospel music editor at Billboard for
10 years.

Now, are you going to a lot of flea markets looking for 45s and 78s?

Mr. DARDEN: Every chance. And all of my friends are, too. We ask...

GROSS: Where do you go? Where do you go?

Mr. DARDEN: Well, a good place to go is, not surprisingly, in the black
parts of town where somebody's grandmother has died and the family is doing an
estate sale or maybe they're selling out the belongings. And somewhere in an
attic or a back room there's a stack of these old well-worn, but well loved,
78s and LPs. And we're so early in the process that we're not being
particularly discriminating, we're buying them all and hopefully that there's
going to be some things usable.

The technology has advanced so far that even a 78 that looks completely flat
like glass, most of the time people's needles bias to the left or to the
right, but our engineer, Tony, can adjust our needle so it one side's flat we
can pick the music off the other side. And we're getting wonderful recordings
out of things that to me look like they were impossible.

GROSS: You're trying to take the pops and the hiss out of the 45s and 78s?

Mr. DARDEN: No, we're doing an archival survival at this stage. We want to
get everything. Since we're never going to make this commercially available,
I'm just--we're afraid if we take the highs and lows off we'll lose some
valuable data that we couldn't replace later. And it's easier to work with
once they've been digitized to do whatever we want to, but we've got to get
them down on digital now how they are.

GROSS: Now, one of the recordings you brought with you today is one that you
describe as among the rarest in the collection that you've created. It's
called "Old Ship of Zion" by the Mighty Wonders of Aquasco with John Stewart
Jr. as the soloist. How did you find this? And how do you know that it's
rare?

Mr. DARDEN: This was one of a number of 45s that came from the Bob Marovich
collection. He got it, as best we know, like you said, at a flea market.
Maybe he came on eBay. It's part of a larger group of materials marked, as
best we've been able to research, as a custom label. So it means somebody
could go in and put $25 down and record a song and then pay, you know, a few
bucks each and maybe make 50, 100, 200 to sell at their performances or to
give to radio deejays. But every database that exists, and all of our serious
collectors that we've checked with, nobody's heard of this. Nobody's heard of
the song. Everything about this is a mystery. But the fact that it's a
custom label doesn't really surprise me. Why this project is so exciting,
here's a voice from somebody who's obviously influenced by Sam Cooke from his
gospel days to the point the first time I heard it I thought it might have
been Sam Cooke. But it's obviously not. And yet nobody would have ever heard
it had we not saved it and you not played it on the air.

GROSS: Yeah, I actually really like the recording, as I'm sure you do, too.

Mr. DARDEN: I think it's wonderful. I think this guy had--he had any
exposure at all along the East Coast where we think this is from, he could
have been a star. This is a warm, sensitive voice with a lot of soul in it.
This guy could have been big.

GROSS: And I'm sure...

Mr. DARDEN: He was big in Aquasco, Maryland.

GROSS: And I'm sure our listeners will hear the similarity that you're
talking about to Sam Cooke. So this is the Mighty Wonders of Aquasco, "Old
Ship of Zion" with John Stewart Jr. as a soloist.

(Soundbite of "Old Ship of Zion")

Mr. JOHN STEWART Jr.: (Singing) 'Tis the old ship of Zion
Ship of Zion
'Tis the old ship of Zion
'Tis the old ship of Zion
Step on board if you want to see Jesus
Step on board if you want to see Jesus
Just step on board and follow me

There's nothing but love

(End of soundbite)

Mr. DARDEN: Mm. Mm, mm, mm.

GROSS: The Mighty Wonders of Aquasco, "The Old Ship of Zion" with John
Stewart Jr. as a soloist, really nice voice.

Mr. DARDEN: It's our engineer Tony's favorite out of all the thousands we've
received so far.

GROSS: So are you keeping up with contemporary gospel and the cross
influences now between gospel and the various forms of pop music?

Mr. DARDEN: I am. I was gospel music editor for Billboard magazine for 10
years in part so I could do the interviews with the old gospel, but it made me
stay in touch with the more contemporary groups. I like the ones who pay more
tribute to the music that's gone before them. There is a section of the black
gospel music community now that, while it maintains the religious lyrics, the
music is indistinguishable from what's on radio. And that's fine. Music
continues to evolve as it has since slavery. But what particularly moves me,
what grabs me is the quartets and the soloists from the '40s, '50s, '60s.

GROSS: Now, you've said about this Gospel Music Restoration Project that
you're working on that you know you'll die before you finish the project
because the project is so vast. And I thought, that's such a beautiful
thought, that you know you're going to devote your life to this. And at the
same time it's a sad thought that it's impossible--that the project is so vast
you know it's impossible to see it to completion.

Mr. DARDEN: It is, and it's not because there's hundreds of thousands of
recordings out there. It's because there are so few and it's going to take so
long to track down the ones to fill in the holes and that we're going to come
to a conclusion at some point on a number of them that, not for love, not for
money and not if I had all the money at Baylor University's Journalism
Department at my command would I find that song. And as I was working on the
"People Get Ready" book I and would write about these songs that everybody
cites as being the most influential in their life, know that I'll never hear
that song. I'll die and maybe I'll hear it in heaven, I hope, but I will
never hear it on this earth and I don't know that anybody alive ever will
again.

GROSS: Hm. I don't know if this is too personal or not, but when you're at
churches, going to hear the gospel music, do you relate at all to the
Christian aspect of it?

Mr. DARDEN: I do. I do. I grew up in the Christian church. I'm a Baptist.
So since a great number of these churches are Baptist, doctrinally it's right
down my alley. Not a problem at all.

GROSS: And have you sung?

Mr. DARDEN: Do I sing?

GROSS: Uh-huh.

Mr. DARDEN: I would--if they invited me, one of the great highlights of my
life would be to play the drums behind one of these groups, but I would never
in a million years sing.

GROSS: OK.

Mr. DARDEN: I would be so intimidated my ears would fold up.

GROSS: Well, I thought it would be nice to close with a Christmas song, and
you brought a terrific version of "Joy to the World" with you. Tell us where
this is from.

Mr. DARDEN: One of the very first, if not the first all-black musicals on
Broadway was "Black Nativity" based on the Langston Hughes book and with music
by the great professor Alex Bradford. Why this is so extraordinary--and
there's been some later revivals that have been very nice--but this one from
the early, I think this particular copy is '61, it has two of my favorite
singers on it. The very rough and powerful Princess Stewart and then once
again my hero, Marion Williams. And this arrangement is just hard to beat. I
don't know of anything out there now that could met this for power and for
great sheer funkiness and joy of life.

GROSS: We should point out it's not Marion Williams singing lead on this,
it's somebody much younger.

Mr. DARDEN: Yeah, that's Princess Stewart.

GROSS: That's Princess Stewart. OK. OK. Well, I want to wish you a merry
Christmas and happy New Year.

Mr. DARDEN: And God bless us all. And if you've got black gospel music, I'm
at Baylor University, I'll take care of you.

GROSS: OK. Robert Darden, thank you so much.

Mr. DARDEN: Thank you, Terry.

GROSS: Robert Darden is the founder of the Gospel Music Restoration Project
at Baylor University in Texas where he also teaches.

(Soundbite of "Joy to the World")

Princess STEWART: (Singing) Singing joy
Joy to the world
Oh glad
Joy to the world
Let earth
Let earth
Receive her king
Let earth receive her king

Oh let it be...(unintelligible)
Oh let it shine
(Unintelligible)
And heaven and nature sing
Whoa, and heaven and nature sing
And heaven, and heaven

Singing joy
Joy to the world
Let freedom ring
(Unintelligible)...their...(unintelligible)
Well...(unintelligible)
Well repeat
Repeat the sounding
Well repeat
Repeat the sounding
Why don't you repeat
Repeat the
Repeat, repeat

I said joy
Joy to the world

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: The 25th anniversary edition of the film "Blade Runner" has just been
released. Coming up, Ridley Scott talks about directing "Blade Runner" and
"American Gangster," which has been nominated for three Golden Globes
including Best Director and Best Dramatic Movie. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Ridley Scott talks about directing "Blade Runner" and
"American Gangster"
TERRY GROSS, host:

My guest Ridley Scott has two films in theaters now, "American Gangster" and
the new 25th anniversary edition of a science fiction film "Blade Runner."
"Blade Runner" was a box office flop in 1982, yet it inspired a futuristic
look that was copied in everything from hotels to rock videos. Based on a
story by Philip K. Dick, "Blade Runner" is about androids called replicants
who look just like humans and were designed as slave labor to colonize other
planets, but they're illegal on earth. Blade runners, like the one played by
Harrison Ford, have the job of hunting down and executing escaped replicants
found on earth. Harrison Ford's character, Deckard, falls in love with a
replicant played by Sean Young.

Before the film was released, Ridley Scott made some changes based on test
screenings and firm studio advice. He added a hard-boiled Harrison Ford
voiceover. The romantic ending when Harrison Ford and Sean Young go off
together sounded like this.

(Soundbite from "Blade Runner")

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. HARRISON FORD: (As Deckard) Gaff had been there and let her live. Four
years, he figured. He was wrong. Tyrell had told me Rachael was special, no
termination date. I didn't know how long we'd have together. Who does?

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: For the 10th anniversary director's cut of the film, Ridley Scott
removed the tacked-on ending, no voiceover, no romantic music. What you hear
as Harrison Ford and Sean Young leave together is the cynical voice of a
fellow blade runner reverberating in Ford's head. That's also the ending on
the new digital final cut, which is in theaters and on DVD.

(Soundbite from "Blade Runner")

Mr. EDWARD JAMES OLMOS: (As Gaff) It's too bad she won't live, but then
again who does?

(Soundbite of music)

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Ridley Scott, welcome back to FRESH AIR. Let's start by talking about
the new edition of "Blade Runner" in theaters and on DVD. The film was made
25 years ago. The future in that film is set in 2019. 2019 is only 11 years
away. So we're 25 years away from the date the film was made, but only 11
years away from this distant future that the film projected. So in that
context, does your whole sense of the future change when you think of 2019
now?

Mr. RIDLEY SCOTT: I thought the reason how it evolved when I first made
"Blade Runner" was I was traveling a lot in the Far East, and Hong Kong
particularly I thought was very fascinating. That was a time before
skyscrapers in Hong Kong, and lots of those beautiful junks in the harbor.
And I was also spending a lot of time in New York, which always seemed to be
perpetually on overload. Both places sank in, and I thought the film should
take on the evolution of those two places and where they might be going in
2019. Notwithstanding, New York is now a very beautiful place, very clean and
for--I think it seems to be pretty well run. So it really isn't taking the
place of "Blade Runner" in 2019. Everything's much cleaner than I expected.
Hong Kong now is a beautiful city with a fantastic skyscraper skyline. So I
think I'd better move the date back a little bit.

GROSS: You've changed the ending from the original. The original ending is
kind of optimistic. Harrison Ford and Rachael the replicant played by Sean
Young kind of begin a life together. And it looks like they're going to get
away from this dystopian world into a better one.

Mr. SCOTT: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: In the new version they go off together, too, but in the new version,
I wasn't sure or not, but it seems like Harrison Ford might be a replicant
himself.

Mr. SCOTT: That's true. Mm-hmm.

GROSS: A lot of clues about that. So can we say that he is or is not one?

Mr. SCOTT: Mm-hmm. He is definitely a replicant.

GROSS: He's definitely a replicant.

Mr. SCOTT: Oh, yes.

GROSS: And did you intend that all along?

Mr. SCOTT: Always.

GROSS: Did you intend first time around...

Mr. SCOTT: Always.

GROSS: ...for us to walk away thinking...

Mr. SCOTT: Always.

GROSS: ...`Oh, he was a replicant too.'

Mr. SCOTT: Yeah, always. That sequence where he actually walks out having
taken her out of his apartment and she's now standing in the elevator and he
stops because his foot touches something, and actually it's an origami, you
know, origami, little objects that people fold up and make little creatures
and birds and things. And this origami, he holds it up and it's a unicorn.
And if you watch Harrison very closely, he actually, in his uniquely wry way,
he wryly nods as if he's just had this truth confirmed and then walks into the
elevator, the doors close and that's the end of the movie. That's a real film
noir, right? And that's what the film was always designed to be.

GROSS: The world as you've created it in "Blade Runner," it's raining all the
time. It's kind of dirty. Everything is basically gray.

Mr. SCOTT: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

GROSS: People don't talk the same language and, like, the Harrison Ford
character is often surrounded by a language that I'm not sure he understands.

Mr. SCOTT: (Unintelligible).

GROSS: And the food is really disgusting.

Mr. SCOTT: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: And often eaten in an outdoor counter with an awning so like you're
kind of nearly eating out in the rain.

Mr. SCOTT: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Can you talk a little bit about--I never read the Philip K. Dick
story that this is based on so I don't know whether you're following his
vision of what a city might be like in the future and how much of this comes
from your imagination.

Mr. SCOTT: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I think Philip got angry with me because
I'd said I couldn't get through the book because it was so dense. And I hope
I fixed that before he died by showing him the first 10 minutes of the movie,
which we were preparing, slotting in the special effects. So I brought Philip
Dick down to EEG in Santa Monica and said, `Listen, I'm, I know you're upset.'
And I tried to make it up to him, `Look at this. This is what I've been
doing.' And he was absolutely stunned, I think. He said, `But you've read
"Man in the High Castle,"' and I said, `No, I haven't.' And he said, `My, God
this is what this Tyrell character is.'

No, basically there's a lot of imagination involved in that, and endless
discussion with the production designers. But, you know, particularly Syd
Mead, because I can draw, so I can scribble and draw quite well, actually.
So, yeah, I have a lot of discussions on a pad with Syd Mead speculating,
saying--and he's a designer who speculates from social order and social
disorder so every design is actually designed for a reason of social
conditions. So that--which is always the best design is--so I was fascinated
by all that. So what we were doing was evolving the world while I was writing
with Hampton.

GROSS: I can't believe you didn't read the Philip K. Dick story. No wonder
he was insulted.

Mr. SCOTT: I tried. I treed. But there's 19 stories in the first six
pages, you know. And I think what Hampton had done was distilled a story down
to a--the hunter falls in love with his quarry. And you set that in a world
where the quarry are replicants. And they're not called replicants in Dick's
book. I think they're called androids. And we didn't want to use the word
android or humanoid or robot because we felt it needed to be more updated.
And actually the name replication, or replicant came from a student of biology
at, I think, Carmel, who was the daughter of David Webb Peoples, I think, and
I said, `We've got to find another name for this thing.' And she came back and
said, `Well, what about the word replicant or replication.' So that's how that
happened.

GROSS: My guest is Ridley Scott. His films include "Blade Runner,"
"Gladiator" and "Black Hawk Down." He also directed "American Gangster," which
is currently in theaters and is nominated for three Golden Globes. Denzel
Washington stars as a drug kingpin in Harlem. Russell Crowe plays the
detective trying to bring him down. Here's a scene after Crowe has succeeded
in busting Washington. Crowe is talking with Washington in prison and
Washington asks him this question.

(Soundbite of "American Gangster")

Mr. DENZEL WASHINGTON: (As Frank Lucas) Let me ask you this. Do you really
think that putting me behind bars is going to change anything on them streets?
Them dope fiends is going to shoot it, they going to steal from it, they're
going to die for it. Putting me in or out ain't going to change one thing.

Mr. RUSSELL CROWE: (As Richie Roberts) And that's the way it is.

Mr. WASHINGTON: (As Lucas) That's the way it is. So what we got, Richie?
We got me and you sitting here.

Mr. CROWE: (As Roberts) I got possession, supply, conspiracy, bribing a law
officer. I've got people to attest to seeing you kill in cold blood. I've
got your offshore bank accounts, your real estate, your businesses, all bought
with money from heroin. I got hundreds of parents with dead kids, addicts who
ODed on your products. And that's my story for my jury. That's how I make it
all stick. `This man murdered thousands of people and he did it from a
penthouse driving a Lincoln.' Aside from that, you got nothing to worry about.

Mr. WASHINGTON: (As Lucas) That's pretty good. But that's why we go to
court, isn't it, Richie? Because I got witnesses, too. I got celebrities. I
got sports figures. I got Harlem, Richie. I took care of Harlem so Harlem's
going to care of me. You can believe that.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Your film "American Gangster" has been nominated for several Golden
Globes including Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Director, and Denzel
Washington Best Actor in a Drama. Am I leaving any out?

Mr. SCOTT: Mm-hmm. No, that's it. That's good.

GROSS: That's it. That's pretty good.

Mr. SCOTT: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Denzel Washington plays a drug kingpin in Harlem who manages to get a
direct contact in--is it Vietnam or Thailand--for his supply...

Mr. SCOTT: Vietnam. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Vietnam, yeah. And he gets wealthier and wealthier and more and more
powerful as the movie goes on.

Mr. SCOTT: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Russell Crowe plays the cop who's trying to take him down.

Mr. SCOTT: Yeah.

GROSS: And, you know, the cop in the story, he's very honest in his working
life, but he never really played it straight with his wife and she's suing for
divorce.

Mr. SCOTT: Right.

GROSS: Whereas, you know, the gangster is very loyal to his family even
though he's totally illegal...

Mr. SCOTT: Sure. Yeah.

GROSS: ...and corrupt. So the contrast in these two characters...

Mr. SCOTT: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: ...was there a similar contrast in the two actors and their approach
to acting? You know, like Russell Crowe you've worked with before in a couple
of films including "Gladiator." How would you compare his approach to acting
to Denzel Washington's? Did you work with them, you know, in different ways?

Mr. SCOTT: Yeah. I mean, similar in a way because, you know, when you've
got a level of intelligence that actually--and therefore
intelligence/sensitivity that both men have--you know, somebody said, well,
Denzel's method kind of actor, but I often wonder what that means. I think it
means that somebody absolutely does his homework inside out, every which way
on the character he's about to portray, and in so doing is making selections
and rejections of what to do and what not to do. And, you know, Russell is
the same thing. So if that's what method is, then they both live it. They
live it. So in that sense they're very similar. Russell's a, you know, a
obsessive researcher about everything he's doing so he knows everything he's
about to play, as does Denzel. So there's--funnily enough, there's a
similarity to them both. So you got to be on your best when you meet with
them and deal with because they'll ask questions all the time. You've got to
be sure that you have the answer.

GROSS: Give me an example of a question you were asked that you needed to
supply an answer to?

Mr. SCOTT: Well, how much did I know about Harlem? Did I--had I done
research, you know. Had I met Frank Lucas yet, because you have to. And this
is all within, you know, a couple weeks of me coming on board. And
fortunately I was able to say, well, actually I was in Harlem in 19--I'm here
to tell you this part--I was in Harlem in 1961. I used to go around and do a
lot of photographing at that particular moment.

GROSS: You did a lot of what?

Mr. SCOTT: Photographs.

GROSS: Oh, photographs. Oh, uh-huh.

Mr. SCOTT: I was going to be a still photographer. So I did a lot of stills
of Harlem, Coney Island, you know, the Bowery. All of these places were war
zones in those days. And I think when you've got a camera and you're a
photographer you don't even think about any danger. So I always remembered
it. And as I was reading Steve's script, I could literally smell it, you
know, the whole environment. It was kind of pretty easy to take on board and
get into it.

GROSS: So what was most difficult in changing it, and when you were shooting
on location in Harlem? What was most difficult to bring back to a 1960s look?
The film was set between what, like, '68 and '73.

Mr. SCOTT: Finding a war zone. It's all cleaning up. All those brownstones
have become $5 million townhouses. I mean, since the last two mayors, you
know, Bloomberg and Giuliani, they've really cleaned it up. I mean, right
through past Columbia University, right through Harlem and Manhattan has never
looked so good, right? So it was really trying to be allowed to, you know,
waste the streets as I remembered it. And they were really helpful. It was
tremendous. Much easier than I expected it to be. I thought it was going to
be much tougher. I said it's going to be really tough to shot in Harlem. We
shot in 180 locations and 130 speaking parts. That is a lot. But it was in
very--it was almost like shooting a documentary, actually.

GROSS: Ridley Scott, thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. SCOTT: Thank you.

GROSS: Ridley Scott's film "American Gangster" is nominated for three Golden
Globes. The 25th anniversary edition of Scott's film "Blade Runner" is on DVD
and in theaters.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.