Gordon, Robert 1961–

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Gordon, Robert 1961–

PERSONAL: Born 1961; married; wife's name Tara; children: two.

ADDRESSES: Home—Memphis, TN. Agent—Christy Fletcher, FletcherParry, The Carriage House, 121 E. 17th St., New York, NY 10003; fax: 212-822-2003.

CAREER: Writer; producer and director of documentary films. Director, with Louis Guida, of documentary film All Day and All Night: Memories from Beale Street Musicians, PBS, 1990; director, with Morgan Neville, and executive producer of documentary film Muddy Waters: Can't Be Satisfied, PBS, 2003; consulting producer for concert film Soul Comes Home, PBS, 2003; writer for W. C. Handy Blues Awards ceremonies; director, with Nelville, of documentary film Shakespeare Was a Big George Jones Fan: Cowboy Jack Clement's Home Movies, Country Music Television, 2006; director, with William Eggleston, and producer of Stranded in Canton.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

It Came from Memphis, Faber & Faber (Boston, MA), 1994.

The King on the Road, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters, foreword by Keith Richards, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2002.

The Elvis Treasures (includes compact disc), Villard (New York, NY), 2002.

(Editor, with Bruce Nemerov) John W. Work, Lewis Wade Jones, and Samuel C. Adams, Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941–1942, Vanderbilt University Press (Nashville, TN), 2005.

OTHER

Author and associate producer of episode "The Road to Memphis," in The Blues (miniseries), PBS, 2003. Author of liner notes for boxed music set Anthology, by Al Green, 1997. Contributor of articles to music magazines.

SIDELIGHTS: Robert Gordon, who has written extensively about music, especially blues and rock and roll, is well known for his biography of great blues-man Muddy Waters, Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters. Gordon spent five years researching and writing the life story of Waters, who was born McKinley Morganfield and came from a family of sharecroppers in rural Mississippi; he went on to become one of the twentieth century's most influential musicians, if not one of its most commercially successful. Waters died in 1983, but in compiling the biography Gordon had access to the musician's half-brother, a granddaughter whom Waters raised, other relatives, friends, and many musical associates.

Waters made his first recordings for folklorist Alan Lomax, who was traveling through the South in the early 1940s seeking out authentic American music. A few years later, Waters left Mississippi for Chicago and became one of the stars of that city's blues scene, playing guitar and singing his own compositions. He had some hit records, then saw his popularity decline in the 1950s with the coming of rock and roll. In the 1960s and 1970s, rock and folk musicians brought him a new level of fame by singing his songs, performing and recording with him, and citing him as a key influence. Among those who championed Waters were Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones, the last who took their name from one of his songs and whose guitarist Keith Richards wrote the foreword to Gordon's book.

In his book Gordon chronicles the diverse aspects of Waters's life and career against the backdrop of the music industry's evolution and changes in the lives of African Americans in the latter half of the twentieth century. Waters emerges as a musical genius who was often less than shrewd in his business dealings—at one point he signed away the copyrights to all his songs—and who led a checkered personal life, with multiple marriages, extramarital affairs, and several out-of-wedlock children. "Gordon's sharp and comprehensive biography can only accept the paradoxes, recognizing Waters's failings while giving full respect to his mojo," commented Jon Pareles in the New York Times.

Gordon "is well placed to deliver an authoritative account of Waters's life," remarked Alfred Hickling in the Manchester Guardian. "He prefers a chatty, informal style and is not shy about stating his preferences, but he backs everything up with scrupulous notes." Hickling added, "As well as giving plentiful evidence of his passion for Waters's work, Gordon illuminates his text with passages of novelistic visualization." New York Times Book Review contributor Michael Lydon observed that Gordon brings "empathy and insight" to Waters's story and "places Waters in musical and social history without becoming pedantic and, equally important, places the man in a world we can see and feel." Library Journal critic Lloyd Jansen added that the book is "likely to become the leading biography of this legendary artist."

Gordon also codirected the documentary film Muddy Waters: Can't Be Satisfied, which serves as a companion to his book. He also has been involved in several other film documentaries, including as co-director of All Day and All Night: Memories from Beale Street Musicians.

Gordon's It Came from Memphis documents that city's contributions to blues, rock, and other musical genres against the background of the racial strife that often plagued the region. Sing Out! reviewer Michael Cala summed up the work as "a very intriguing book" that offers an "insider's ride through the state of mind known as Memphis, Tennessee." He also has written two works dealing with one of the most famous performers associated with Memphis, Elvis Presley, in The King on the Road and The Elvis Treasures.

In 2005 came the publication of Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941–1942, which Gordon edited with Bruce Nemerov. Gordon recovered long-lost writings by three African-American scholars from Fisk University who were involved with this project, a venture that led, among other things, to Lomax's recording of Muddy Waters. Lomax, who was white, has generally enjoyed the highest profile of those involved with the project, but the book highlights the important contributions of his three black associates: musicologist John W. Work III, sociologist Lewis Wade Jones, and graduate student Samuel C. Adams, Jr. In addition to their writings, the book features essays by Gordon and Nemerov on the roles Work, Jones, and Adams played in the project and on their overall careers.