ARCHIVES OF AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSIC AND CULTURE liner notesNO. 20 / 2015-2016 A Sound Disciple: The Life and Radio Career of Jacquie Gales Webb From the Desk of the Director aaamc mission The AAAMC is devoted to the collection, preservation, and As I come to the close of my second Initiative, followed by three days of dissemination of materials for year as Director of the Archives stimulating sessions and IU hospitality. the purpose of research and of African American Music and Nelson-Strauss’ organizational efforts study of African American Culture, I pause to reflect on the list of were supported by AAAMC staff, music and culture. accomplishments we have achieved over including Digital Archivist/Project www.indiana.edu/~aaamc the past twelve months. Each day my Manager William Vanden Dries, and appreciation and understanding of the graduate assistants Matthew Alley and very vital roles that the Archives can Douglas Peach, both Ph.D. students in Table of Contents play in our individual and collective lives ethnomusicology at IU. Peach’s talents increases. With a mission of collection, were showcased as a presenter in a panel From the Desk preservation, dissemination and which highlighted the contents of his of the Director .....................2 analysis, archives can help in making the co-authored book, Ola Belle Reed and difference in whose story gets told and Southern Mountain Music on the Mason- In the Vault: how. Dixon Line (2015). Recent Donations .................3 In December 2015, a panel comprised Brenda Nelson-Strauss represented of Drs. Alisha Jones and Tyron Cooper the AAAMC in Los Angeles in October A Sound Disciple: and I, chaired by Dr. Clara Henderson, 2015 when Logan Westbrooks, a The Life and Radio Career presented the session Hot Buttered past member of our advisory board, of Jacquie Gales Webb ..........4 Soul: The Role of Foodways in Building received the Vanguard Award from and Sustaining African American the Living Legends Foundation in Jacquie Gales Webb Communities at the annual meeting recognition of his distinguished career Visits Indiana University ......10 of the Society for Ethnomusicology in the music industry. We were thrilled meeting in Austin, Texas. Both Jones that Westbrooks chose to remark on One on One: Interview and Cooper are valued AAAMC his ongoing relationship with IU and with Ericka Blount Danois ....12 research associates, who had presented the AAAMC during his acceptance Featured Collection: earlier versions of their papers to an speech at the awards banquet, Behind the Scenes of enthusiastic audience at an AAAMC encouraging other Black music industry Soul Train: The Ericka event sponsored in conjunction with the executives to consider the importance Blount Danois Collection ......17 College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana of preserving history. The Logan University in 2014. The SEM panel was Westbrooks Collection holds a position One on One: Interview well attended, especially for the early of prominence in the AAAMC, and his with Opal Louis Nations .......18 8:00 a.m. start time. Musical examples visit and public presentations at IU in in the presentations featured items from 2013 made an indelible impression on Online Exhibit: The Golden the AAAMC broadly representative of the broad range of students who heard Age of Black Radio ..............23 African American musical practices, his riveting stories as a pioneering rural and urban, sacred and secular, past executive at CBS Records, who advanced Sound Bytes: and present. The subsequent spirited the careers of the likes of Harold Melvin Digital Initiatives ................26 exchange which the panelists generated & the Blue Notes, Billy Paul, and the was sufficiently stimulating to prompt O’Jays. the audience to continue the discussion Memorabilia from the Logan On the Cover: for a full 30-minutes after the session Westbrooks Collection was displayed officially ended. Our long term objective as part of the fall 2015 exhibit, The for this AAAMC-inspired project is to Wunderkammer: The Curiosities in expand and translate this important Indiana University Collections, at content into print. the Grunwald Gallery of Art on the The AAAMC was also strongly in IU campus. Douglas Peach curated evidence at the 50th annual ARSC the AAAMC portion of the exhibit (Association for Recorded Sound which included a lunchbox given to Collections) conference held at Indiana Westbrooks to “create a buzz” for Diana University during May 2016. Through Ross’ 1989 album, Workin’ Overtime; a the vision of the AAAMC’s Head of key to the City of Memphis, Tennessee, Collections Brenda Nelson-Strauss, presented to Westbrooks in 1991; and a who served as conference organizer, Soul Train jacket Westbrooks received Jacquie Gales Webb, host of Sunday the group of nearly 300 attendees during his tenure as Vice President for Afternoon Gospel on Washington, D.C.’s was welcomed to a two-day pre- Marketing at Soul Train Records. WHUR. conference workshop featuring IU’s new Another AAAMC 2015-16 highlight Media Digitization and Preservation was the invitation from Google to curate 2 an online juried exhibit for publication This account provides a glimpse of the during Black History Month. As one of breadth of the AAAMC’s educational the 54 cultural organizations selected to mission and the richness of its impact participate, our four-part virtual exhibit, on our ever expanding information The Golden Age of Black Radio,was culture. The staff of the AAAMC added to the Google Cultural Institute cultivates and values opportunities to site in February 2016. The exhibit document and foreground accounts of garnered the attention of National African American presence, innovation Public Radio, which prompted an on-air and excellence in the field of music. We interview regarding its conception and welcome your feedback as a measure of content with Brenda Nelson-Strauss. our success in this effort. — Mellonee Burnim, Ph.D. In the Vault: Recent Donations Special Collections: Angela Brown: Additional programs and Teresa Hairston: Gospel music magazines, press clippings from 2013-2015. CDs, DVDs, videos, media press kits, artist Deborah Smith Pollard: Gospel music publicity, and event photographs. magazines, interviews with gospel Michael Nixon: Hip hop magazines musicians, and radio airchecks. and images related to the marketing and Opal Louis Nations: Pewburner CD series promotion of hip hop artists and music in and recent articles. Carl Tancredi: Limited circulation Los Angeles, CA. magazines from the 1970s with a focus on Prince Rogers Nelson Commemorative vocal harmony groups. Logan Westbrooks: Additional personal Publications: Collection of posthumously papers from 2013-2015. published magazines compiled by AAAMC staff. CD/DVD/Book Donors: 4Entertainment Daptone Records Killer B3 Resonance Records Akousa Gyebi Delmark Records Legacy Recordings Resonate Media Alison M Loggins-Hill DL Media Luaka Bop Rock Paper Scissors Alligator Records Dorado Lydia Liebman Promotions Sacks and Co Armadillo Music Effective Immediately PR M.C. Records Secretly Canadian Audio Preservation Fund Entertainment One Mack Avenue Records Shanachie Entertainment Avie Records Ethan Alapatt Mariea Antoinette Shout! Factory Basin Street Records Fat Possum Records Mark Pucci Media Slingshot Bellamy Group Fernando Orejuela Michael Woods Sony Legacy Black Diet Flipswitch PR Living Legends Foundation SSR PR Blind Pig Records Forced Exposure MCG Records Sugar Qube Records Blind Raccoon Fully Altered Media Miles High Productions Sugar Shack Blue Engine Records Gathier Music Montema Tá Records Blue Note Get On Down MVD Terri Hinte Blues Images Girlie Action Naxos of America Thirsty Ear Braithwaite & Katz Good Road PR New Community Thompkins Media Group Communications Hard Head Nonesuch Tomás Doncker Bryant Scott Harmonia Mundi Numero Group Tyscot Records Capitol Entertainment HighNote Records Okeh Ubiquity Records Chart Room Media illPhonics PELO Music Universal Music Cherry Red Records Indra Rios-Moore Portia Maultsby University of Chicago Press Cleopatra Records Jatta Press Junkie Wacken Records Computer Ugly Jazz Promo Services Propeller Media Group Warner Music Group Concord Music Group Jazz Village Rahim Muhammad Wolf Records Conqueroo Jensen Communications Real Gone Music Culture Shock Music Joe Douglass Ministries Red Beet Records Cumbancha K7 Records RED Distribution The AAAMC welcomes donations of photographs, film, video, sound recordings, music, and research materials on all aspects of African American music. 3 A Sound Disciple: The Life and Radio Career of Jacquie Gales Webb Jacquie Gales Webb is an impactful presence moved to Westbury, Long Island, settling Frankie Crocker, and La Mar Renee—all in the broadcasting industry. As the host of in the neighborhood of New Cassel. At Black radio personalities. The female Sunday Afternoon Gospel, she has become a that time, New Cassel was an important deejays were especially influential to Gales: mainstay on Washington, D.C.’s WHUR-FM working-class suburban area for African “[I was] a little girl hearing these beautiful and, today, is being broadcast throughout Americans. Gales Webb reflects: “. I had voices, female voices, [and it] allowed me the world via the web. Gales Webb’s passion a pretty good childhood [among] African to imagine doing the same thing.” And she for music has been expressed through Black American families growing up in one did. radio for over 40 years and she has garnered neighborhood—you know, doctors and Channeling their inspiration,