Music Documentarian Robert Mugge is out with his new memoir, Notes from the Road: A Filmmaker's Journey through American Music.
The book focuses on the making of what Mugge considers to be his 25 key music-related docs. Among them are Deep Blues, Saxophone Colossus with Sonny Rollins, Black Wax with Gil Scott-Heron, Gospel According to Al Green and maybe his most famous doc Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise.
Mugge spoke with WBGO News Director Doug Doyle about his memoir and the upcoming screenings of three of his earliest music docs.
![Music documentarian Robert Mugge discusses his new memoir with WBGO's Doug Doyle](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/8bad7b3/2147483647/strip/true/crop/640x227+0+0/resize/880x312!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F49%2F9b%2F2973293e465a9e0cf99224b97925%2Frobert-and-doug.jpg)
On August 10th through the 12th, the Roxy Cinema in New York will screen his Sun Ra and Gil Scott-Heron films, as well as his 1983 reggae concert film Cool Runnings made in 1983.
Mugge says his life changed when he went to the 1972 Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival and watched Sun Ra and his Arkestra perform.
"I will still an undergraduate at the time at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. There I witnessed Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Miles Davis, Bonnie Raitt with Sippie Wallace, Junior Walker and the All-Stars, but as great as everyone was, the one who blew me away was Sun Ra. It was a combination of a lot of things, the soulful vocals, the squealing saxophones and the Afro-Caribbean rhythms."
![Sun Ra and his Arkestra](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/6fe67ae/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1859x2820+0+0/resize/880x1335!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F60%2F9c%2F95691b1c4aa6a27d174d99c706fd%2Fsr4-copy-2.jpg)
That performance would lead Mugge to work on a documentary on Sun Ra that eventually came out in 1980.
During his WBGO interview, Mugge also shares stories about Sonny Rollins and why he doesn't consider himself a music historian.
![Cover of Robert Mugge's "Notes From the Road"](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f1d96dc/2147483647/strip/true/crop/667x1000+0+0/resize/880x1319!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F6b%2F79%2F0cdd621c4e938666f9c14ee376f7%2Fnotesfromtheroad.jpg)
You can SEE the entire interview with Robert Mugge here.