VOA标准英语2013--Gospel Music Restoration Project to Add Flavor to New Museum

 

Gospel Music Restoration Project to Add Flavor to New Museum

Through Baylor University’s Black Gospel Music Restoration Project a remarkable¹ collection of music that’s been housed in Texas is poised² to add flavor to a new museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.  

Today, Bob Darden is a college professor in Waco, Texas.  But in 1960, he was a small child whose father had just brought home the family’s first three LP phonograph records.  Two of them, he didn’t care about.

“The third was Mahalia Jackson’s Christmas album," he said.  "And my parents say that at about age six or so,  that I played Mahalia’s album over and over.”

Darden’s fascination³ lasted throughout his life.  He eventually became gospel music editor for Billboard⁴ magazine.  Then in 2005, Darden - frustrated⁵ that it was getting harder to find this music that he loved -- wrote a letter to The New York Times complaining that black gospel was disappearing.  A man named Charles Royce read the letter “and called that day and said, ‘Tell me what we need to do and I’ll help fund it.’”

Royce’s gift was used to create the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project at Baylor University, where Darden was teaching.  As of today, Darden says, “We have 8,000-plus individual sides digitized and catalogued and more coming in every day.”

That’s 8,000 mostly 45 RPM gospel records - the little ones that held one song per side - from the 1940s to 1970s.  In 2011, the collection came to the attention of former first lady Laura Bush, who has a home in Waco and is on the cultural council of the Smithsonian Institution’s new museum of African-American History and Culture.

“They let us know of this wonderful project that was going at Baylor, in Texas and then a team of people came up here to D.C. to show us what they’ve accomplished⁶ and we were all very impressed,” said  Dwandalyn Reece, the museum’s curator of Music and Performing Arts.

The fact that these are 45 rpm records turned out to be very important in an unexpected way.  45s always had a side called the "hit" side, with a popular song and then the "flip⁷" side, which fewer people listened to.  The flip side, Darden says, was “usually where the artist does their own personal song.”

When it comes to the U.S. civil rights era, Darden says, that makes these records important artifacts, because so many of the flip sides were civil rights songs that are completely unknown.

Even for an historian of music like Dwandalyn Reece, this was a revelation.

“You think people are just talking about religion, and the other side they have a message embedded⁸ in that as well," she said.  "The whole idea of having, like a Civil Rights Movement message in a gospel song - it was - just blew my mind.”

African-American gospel music, Darden likes to remind people, is the foundational music for most American music from the 20th century.

“Every rock n' roll African-American artist, every rap, every soul artist came out of the church and sang these songs,” he said.

Now the highlights of this remarkable collection are on their way to Washington, D.C.  Putting this music in the Smithsonian, Reece says, “gives a forum⁹ for more people to hear this music and have access to it.”

It’s an important gift to the United States and to the world, she says.  And more than that, “I see this as an untold¹⁰ story that hasn’t gotten its due yet.”

The Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture - including the best of the Royce-Darden Collection - is scheduled to open in 2015.

1 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

2 poised   

a.摆好姿势不动的

参考例句：

• The hawk poised in mid-air ready to swoop. 老鹰在半空中盘旋，准备俯冲。
• Tina was tense, her hand poised over the telephone. 蒂娜心情紧张，手悬在电话机上。

3 fascination   

n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋

参考例句：

• He had a deep fascination with all forms of transport.他对所有的运输工具都很着迷。
• His letters have been a source of fascination to a wide audience.广大观众一直迷恋于他的来信。

4 billboard   

n.布告板，揭示栏，广告牌

参考例句：

• He ploughed his energies into his father's billboard business.他把精力投入到父亲的广告牌业务中。
• Billboard spreads will be simpler and more eye-catching.广告牌广告会比较简单且更引人注目。

5 frustrated   

adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
• The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 accomplished   

adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的

参考例句：

• Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
• Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。

7 flip   

vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的

参考例句：

• I had a quick flip through the book and it looked very interesting.我很快翻阅了一下那本书，看来似乎很有趣。
• Let's flip a coin to see who pays the bill.咱们来抛硬币决定谁付钱。

8 embedded   

a.扎牢的

参考例句：

• an operation to remove glass that was embedded in his leg 取出扎入他腿部玻璃的手术
• He has embedded his name in the minds of millions of people. 他的名字铭刻在数百万人民心中。

9 forum   

n.论坛，讨论会

参考例句：

• They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
• The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。

10 untold   

adj.数不清的，无数的

参考例句：

• She has done untold damage to our chances.她给我们的机遇造成了不可估量的损害。
• They suffered untold terrors in the dark and huddled together for comfort.他们遭受着黑暗中的难以言传的种种恐怖，因而只好挤在一堆互相壮胆。