Robert F. Darden is the author of two dozen books, including Nothing But Love in God’s Water, Volumes I & Il and People Get Ready! A New History of Black Gospel Music. He is currently working on the definitive biography of gospel legend Andrae Crouch.
He is the founder of Baylor’s Black Gospel Music Restoration Project, the world’s largest initiative to identify, acquire, and digitize the fast-vanishing vinyl of gospel music from gospel’s Golden Age. This project provides the gospel music for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture and the new PBS series The Black Church in America with Dr. Henry Louis Gates.
At Baylor, Darden has been honored with the Cornelia
Marschall Smith Award as Outstanding Professor (2011); Baylor University Diversity Award (2010); the Outstanding Research Professor, College of Arts & Sciences
(2008); Outstanding Teaching Professor, College of Arts & Sciences (2018); and the Baylor Centennial Award (2008).
Darden’s articles and essays have appeared in publications ranging from the New York Times to the Oxford American. He has been featured in hundreds of radio and television programs, including Fresh Air with Terri Gross (NPR), 1A with Joshua Johnson, All Things Considered (NPR), CSPAN, BBC World Service, and others.
Additionally, Darden spent 20 years as the Senior Editor for the Wittenburg Door and another 15 years as Gospel Music Editor for Billboard Magazine. In 2016, he created Shout! Black Gospel Music Moments for KWBU-FM Waco.
Darden is married to Dr. Mary Landon Darden, president of the education consulting firm Higher Education Innovation, Inc. The couple live in Waco and have three children (Daniel, Rachel and Van) and four grandchildren.
