Mighty Clouds of Joy perform on stage. Penn State Altoona professor of Communication Arts and Sciences Jerry Zolten produced and narrated a documentary, “How They Got Over/Gospel Quartets and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll,” which airs at 2:45 p.m. Sunday, June 19, on Turner Classic Movies. Courtesy photos

An acclaimed documentary film — produced and narrated by a local professor — “How They Got Over/Gospel Quartets and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll” will air at 2:45 p.m. on Turner Classic Movies on Sunday, June 19.

The film is produced and narrated by nationally-recognized musicologist Jerry Zolten, a professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State Altoona. He is also the producer of the Grammy winning gospel group the Fairfield Four (as seen in the film “O Brother Where Art Thou”) and the author of the book “Great God A’Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds/Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music.” The second edition becomes available this month from Oxford University Press. He has been involved in the gospel documentary project for the past 10 years.

“For the first couple of years, Clem and his team, with me occasionally along, filmed interviews with survivors of the era telling their stories. This took us far and wide from New York and Philadelphia to California, Chicago and points South,” Zolten said.

The project was funded through private investors like JR DiAndrea of Altoona, grants and kickstarter campaigns.

The 2017 documentary directed by Robert Clem enjoyed a theatrical release last year which was preceded by rounds of film festivals, a typical prelude, Zolten said, and its accolades include being named best documentary at the South Georgia Film Festival in 2019 and DOCUTAH Film Festival in St. George, Utah.

“While it is of course great to win ‘best,’ just having the film accepted at a film festival is an award itself,” Zolten said. “The competition out there is enormous and what was really great for us is that once our film had momentum we no longer had to submit it for consideration and were instead getting calls from festivals asking if they could screen it. That was pretty gratifying.”

The film screened in festivals across America, showing in Los Angeles at the Grammy museum and at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. Its international travels included showings in London, Amsterdam and a five city tour of Australia.

“I have to say, it is such a kick to sit in a theater and watch people watching your film,” Zolten said. “And it’s especially gratifying when the film gets heartfelt applause at the close.”

JR DiAndrea of DiAndrea Media of Altoona, said, “It’s good to have been involved and to see it succeed. It’s an important film and the story it tells is one most people aren’t aware of. “It’s gratifying to see over the last couple of years what it has accomplished on the film festival circuit. It’s finally getting a lot of respect and interest it deserves. A lot more people will have an opportunity to see it.”

The Turner airing comes after last month’s DVD release and streaming availability on Amazon Prime and HBO Max.

“Does it get any better than that,” Zolten said “I suppose part of it is validation that you did good work and that people in a position to know thought the film worthy. And there is also good old-fashioned pride that you have been included in a rather exclusive club. But really the bottom line is that maybe thousands or a million people, who knows, will have the opportunity to at least see the film.”

The timing with Juneteenth is especially meaningful, Zolten said, as the day commemorates emancipation and celebration of the African-American culture. He’s also “thrilled” that the film appears in a block of his favorite films, especially “Stormy Weather,” which features Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, and the dancing Nicholas Brothers.

“Our film tells the little-known story of how just before and especially after World War II enterprising and innovative African American religious entertainers developed a singing style and feel that became foundational to rock’n’roll. When I was a kid growing up in Pittsburgh the first music I heard called rock ‘n’ roll was by Black vocal groups. The Flamingos. The Cadillacs. The Del Vikings. Little Anthony and the Imperials. James Brown and the Famous Flames. Sam Cooke. What these artists were doing was secularizing gospel music, and in the process, introducing a form and approach to performance that to this day underlies so much of American popular music.”

“How They Got Over” features classic performance footage of the Soul Stirrers, Dixie Hummingbirds, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Blind Boys of Mississippi, Sensation Nightingales, the Davis Sisters and many more. Zolten criss-crossed the country conducting interviews with some of the greatest names in quartet music who provide vivid accounts of how they “got over” in their performances: shouting, bending over backwards, dancing, jumping off the stage: what came to be known as “gospel drama” that later influenced future rock ‘n’ rollers.

“People need to understand where the influences were and how important the influences were in contributing to the genre. It’s a great, important story,” DiAndrea said.