HOW THEY GOT OVER
A film by Robert Clem
Now playing – Live & Virtual Cinemas
87 minutes | color | English
Directed and edited by Robert Clem
Produced by Robert Clem and Mike Tannen
One State Films and Tannen Media Ventures
Executive producers JR DiAndrea and Jim Lenard Thompson
Co-producers Jerry Zolten and Opal Louis Nations
Photography by Robert Clem, Alan Hostetter and Tommy Wier
Mixed by Paul Geluso
“How They Got Over” is a feature-length documentary about the black music singing quartets who traveled the South in the 1930s and 40s creating a hard gospel sound and vigorous performing style that foreshadowed doo-wop, rhythm, and blues, soul and Motown.
The quartets started in the barbershops in the 1930s and feature live performances by the artists of the time. Classic footage of Soul Stirrers, Dixie Hummingbirds, Blind Boys of Alabama, Blind Boys of Mississippi, Sensational Nightingales, Mighty Clouds of Joy, Highway QCs, Davis Sisters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and The Barrett Sisters. Other great voices featured Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls before they went on to perform secular music.
Featuring first-hand accounts by some of the artists themselves including Ira Tucker of the Dixie Hummingbirds, Issac Freeman of Fairfield Four and Clarence Fountain of Blind Boys of Alabama.
Music lovers and historians will enjoy the history lesson.
