TORONTO, July 17, 1998 -- York University professor and Grammy Award-winner Rob Bowman is adding another prize to the long list of honours he has won for his research on popular music.

Bowman will be at the Porretta Soul Festival, Italy, on July 25 to accept the 1998 Sweet Soul Music Award for his best-selling book Soulsville, U.S.A. - The Story of Stax Records.

The book -- a definitive history of the legendary Memphis-based R & B label which launched the careers of such greats as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes and Booker T. and the MGs -- was also nominated for the prestigious Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Awards, given annually in New York. Negotiations are currently under way for a film option with a leading director.

Back home in Toronto, Bowman is busy with a host of other activities. He is co-programmer and featured presenter of the "Reely the Blues" film series, part of the Heineken Soul 'n' Blues Festival now running at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre. The series includes the Canadian theatrical premiere screening of Phil Priestley's 1994 documentary The Soul of Stax, for which Bowman served as researcher, interviewer, writer and assistant director.

Another current project is programming and taping a blues show which will be available for in-flight listening on Air Canada starting in September.

Rob Bowman pioneered university-level popular music studies in Canada at York University, where he has taught since 1979. He lectures, broadcasts and publishes extensively in many areas of popular music, from country, R & B and gospel to reggae, rap and funk. He has written liner notes for dozens of recordings, and regularly authors, produces and advises on major documentary and CD reissue projects for record companies in Europe and North America.

For more information please contact:

Brigitte Kleer
Public Relations Manager, Faculty of Fine Arts
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 77143
email: bkleer@yorku.ca

or

Ken Turriff
Media Relations Officer
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22086
email: kturriff@yorku.ca