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A Shellac Maven Above All Others


thebes

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Yup. 78's. Perhaps the greatest source of Americana music. 

Almost totally abandoned, even by audiophools, collectors, artists and historians of the roots of much of American, and other cultures, early recorded music.

 

I admit, I only have a few, and can play them, but do not have dedicated needle, which is what you really need. But then in the Washington Post this week there is article about this guy whihc I've excerpted here:

 

Joe Bussard

"Since the early 1950s, Bussard (“Everybody thinks it’s pronounced ‘buzzard,’ but it’s Boosard,” he says) has been acquiring 78 rpm recordings of the earliest and rarest examples of blues, bluegrass, jazz, country and gospel music. The collection of discs he has amassed is considered by many fellow collectors as one of the finest and most eclectic of early American roots music in the country. In the basement of his unassuming home, some 15,000 records fill the shelves.

 

In the world that pays attention to these things, Bussard’s treasure is legendary. Filmmakers have made documentaries about him. Writers have paid homage. Fans and musicians from all over the country have journeyed here just to see the records and listen to Bussard tell how he traveled the back roads of Appalachia and the South to find them. And they come to hear the songs.

 

In his basement, time has stopped. There are no computers, no flat-screen televisions. Other than two newer turntables, there’s almost nothing that looks like it was made in the past 50 years. There’s a 300-pound speaker cabinet he bought in 1960, photos on the wall from the ’50s, and rows and rows of records from the ’40s, ’30s and ’20s.

Bussard’s collection “is almost mystical,” says Ken Brooks, a fellow 78 collector who first learned about Bussard when he watched “Desperate Man Blues,” a 2003 BBC documentary about him. “It’s so deep and wide. He has blues records that nobody else has. Country records that no one else has. Jazz records that no one else has.”

In the book of Bussard, the spirit and soul and depth of American music can only be heard on the oldest 78s.

Modern music, he’ll tell you often, is “awwful, just awwful.” And by modern, he means anything since Elvis Presley, and the Beatles and “all that crap” destroyed music altogether. For Bussard, real jazz ended in 1933. And the last good country song was Jimmy Murphy’s “I’m Looking for a Mustard Patch” in 1955.

In his basement redoubt, Bussard walks over to his wall of records to make another selection. The records are all in identical faded green sleeves with no marking to differentiate them. They are not ordered alphabetically or by year or by label. Only he knows the system.

“If I get Alzheimer’s, I’m really in trouble,” Bussard says.

He pulls another record from the shelf — “Death May Be Your Paycheck,” by F.W. McGee, recorded in 1928 on Victor — and flashes a wicked smile. “Wait till you hear this.”

What he wants, more than anything, is for people to listen to the far-flung, wild, beautiful music found in America before recordings became commonplace and swallowed up regional idiosyncrasies. He wants people to hear the music created before vinyl, before 8-tracks, before cassettes, before CDs, before one-stop shopping on Spotify.

“Wait till you hear this,” he says and puts on Jesse Stone’s “Starvation Blues” from 1927. And then it’s “Florida Rhythm” by the Ross De Luxe Syncopaters. And “It’s a Good Thing” by the Beale Street Sheiks. And “Original Stack O’ Lee Blues” by Long Cleve Reed and Little Harvey Hull.

And on and on and on.

But whenever Bussard had free time, he jumped in his Ford sedan and went in search of shellac gold.

He bought from dealers and at estate sales, but mostly he drove on twisty back roads through the hollers of West Virginia and Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and down through the Deep South of Georgia, the Carolinas and Mississippi. He asked everyone he met if they had “any of them old records,” and they’d point him up to an attic or down the road to their cousin’s house or to an abandoned five-and-dime in town.

After a while, Bussard could smell them. He found the old 78s in outhouses and spring houses, pulled them from broom closets and travel trunks. Many of the records were ordinary, dime-a-dozen discs with grooves so worn the record sounded like a slow-motion train wreck. But then, every so often, eureka!

“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy,” is what Bussard remembers thinking when he came across a rare, unblemished gem. “I had to hold my hands down to keep them from shaking.”

Bussard sometimes forgets what he ate for breakfast, but he can provide detailed background on his records, the year they were made, who played on them and how many are still known to exist. He can tell you how much they’re worth, too, but he likes to keep that part quiet. He says he has never spent more than $500 on a record. But he has sold a few for much more than that.

The collection grew, and so did Bussard’s obsession. He didn’t want to trade records; he wanted only to keep getting more. It took over everything.

 

 

 

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