Robert Gordon (writer and filmmaker)

Robert Gordon is a Grammy Award-winning writer and filmmaker from Memphis, Tennessee. His work has focused on the American south—its music, art, and politics—to create an insider’s portrait of his home, both nuanced and ribald.

Robert Gordon's first film, All Day and All Night: Memories From Beale Street Musicians, is a 30-minute documentary shot on 16mm. Produced by the Center for Southern Folklore, the film features musicians such as B.B. King, Booker T. Laury, Rufus Thomas, and Evelyn Young. The film showed at MOMA's New Directors/New Films Festival in 1990.

Gordon is also the writer and associate producer of The Road To Memphis, a Richard Pearce film that documents the career of musician B.B. King. The Road To Memphis is featured in Martin Scorsese's 2003 documentary series The Blues (film).

In 2005, Gordon produced and directed the acclaimed Stranded in Canton, a black-and-white counterculture immersion filmed by photographer William Eggleston in 1975.Stranded in Canton heavily features Memphis rock and roll outlaw Jerry McGill, who recorded at Sun Records for a short period in the late 1950s. Gordon produced the follow-up verite´ shocker Very Extremely Dangerous, a 2012 film documenting the turbulent life of McGill. The film saw its regional premiere at Indie Memphis Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize for Documentary Feature.

His more traditional documentaries include Muddy Waters: Can’t Be Satisfied (which aired on PBS’s American Masters) and the PBS Great Performances special, Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story. Other titles include Johnny Cash’s America (A&E) and Shakespeare Was A Big George Jones Fan, a documentary about Jack Clement. His work has been broadcast on PBS, A&E, and numerous international networks, and has been exhibited nationally and internationally at prominent museums (The Whitney, MOMA, LACMA, SFMOMA, Haus der Kunst).

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