Warriors Mark resident, Dr. Jerry Zolten is scheduled to appear on the live hour-long program, To The Best of My Knowledge with Graham Spanier.
The show is set to air Tuesday, February 22 at 7 p.m. The topic will be gospel music.
To the Best of My Knowledge, hosted by Penn State President, Dr. Graham Spanier, airs on both radio, WPSU 91.5 FM and TV, WPSX channel 3.
In honor of Black History Month, Dr. Spanier decided to discuss black gospel music on next weeks program.
The program description for the February broadcast reads, “In 2004 alone, gospel music sales soared, the result of a growing a widespread audience for gospel music. Though the surge in popularity has been significant over the last few decades, the gospel genre stems back to the late 1800s. How did gospel evolve? How does the tradition continue to influence music today? And with the impact of secular music beats, what’s the outlook for contemporary gospel? Tune in as Dr. Graham Spanier and his guests discuss the roots and future of gospel music.”
Zolten recently published an award-winning book on the history of black gospel legends the Dixie Hummingbirds titled Great God A’Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds: Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music.
He has also produced CDs by Grammy-winners the Fairfield Four and their bass vocalist Isaac Freeman and written numerous CD liner notes and articles about the genre. Aware of Zolten’s experience in this area, Dr. Spanier asked him to be apart of the program along with Dr. Anthony Leach, an associate professor of music and music education at Penn State-University Park where he is the director of the University Choir and Essence of Joy, a choir singing sacred and secular music of the African-American tradition.
In addition to writing and producing, Zolten said, “I am a musical blues, swing, R&B performer, guitar/vocals, and I also have a world-class collection of historically important 78 rpm recordings in the genres of gospel, blues, country, R&B and more.
“I am also the host, writer, and co-producer of two hour-long nationally syndicated public radio programs, one on gospel history called In the Spirit, and the other, Chimpin’ the Blues, a collaboration with legendary cartoonist Robert Crumb on blues history.”
Information about these shows can be found on the web. In the Spirit is located at http://prx.org/piece/3187 and Chimpin’ the Blues can be found at http://prx.org/piece/177.
“Chimpin’ has got me an invite to travel to London at the end of March as part of a month-long celebration of R. Crumb. I’ll be speaking about Crumb and music and record collecting as part of the exhibit at Whitechapel Gallery,” added Zolten. More information can be found on this topic at http://www.whitechapel.org/content1140.html
Zolten has been teaching at Penn State since the mid-1980s and is currently an Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and American Studies.
In addition to communication skills course, he also teaches courses on the cultural roots of rock ‘n’ roll, a social history of stand-up comedy, and the impact of TV on 1950s America.
His wife, Joyce, is a social worker. His son, Zach, a junior at Tyrone Area High School, is also an active musician playing the trombone and piano in the school marching, jazz, and concert bands under the direction of Mr. Kris Laird.
Viewers and listeners of Dr. Spanier’s program are invited to join the discussion by calling 1-800-543-8242 or by logging onto the Web at wpsx.org and wpsu.org. A live webcast of the program is also available at www.live.psu.edu.
