Mighty Writers Documentary
Going Black Airing on WXPN


WDAS disc jockey Georgie Woods.

WDAS disc jockey Georgie Woods.

On Feb. 3, WXPN will air the Mighty Writers-produced audio documentary Going Black: The Legacy of Philly Soul Radio.

The two-hour documentary — narrated by Sound of Philadelphia (TSOP) producer and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Kenny Gamble — takes a look at the legacy of Philly Soul Radio, a medium that, according Mighty Writers Executive Director Tim Whitaker, broke ground by “playing records the white stations wouldn’t. … The stations [these disc jockeys] worked for — WDAS, in particular — routinely covered news and events the mainstream media ignored.”

Among those newsier elements of the doc are first-person accounts of civil rights events, and a 1964 interview with Malcolm X, which was conducted only a few months before his assassination. There’s also audio from some of the eras most popular DJs, like Jocko Henderson, Georgie Woods (pictured, right), Jimmy Bishop and Louise Williams, and, of course, an accompanying soundtrack of classic TSOP hits.

Going Black: The Legacy of Philly Soul Radio airs on WXPN on Mon., Feb. 3 at 8 p.m. If you miss that, you can also catch it on WHYY on Sun., Feb. 16 at 6 p.m., and a condensed, one-hour version on Sat., Feb. 22 at 2 p.m.