As the book cover tells us, this is the story of "the wild, obsessive hunt for the world's rarest 78 RPM records". And a fascinating tale it is too; hence me finishing it in under a week.
I should perhaps first explain my own albeit brief association with these thick but brittle discs. As a youngster aged about 11 or 12 I would occasionally be taken by my mother to visit an elderly aunt. It wasn't a visit I relished as frankly there was little for me to do apart from listen to older people talk about things that were of no interest to me. In short, I was bored. That is until I discovered a strange contraption in a back bedroom that has once been occupied by an older female cousin who had since married and left home. This was a wind up gramophone and in the cabinet below were stored a pile of 78 RPM records in their quaint, paper covers. I played them all and soon selected my particular favourites which I played over and over again. Suddenly my visits to the elderly aunt became a joy simply because we did not even have a record player at home so the only music I could listen to came from the radio - or as we called it back then, the wireless.
Among those favourite records were 'Dimples' by John Lee Hooker on the Vee-Jay label, 'A Handful of Songs' by Tommy Steele (on Decca) and rather embarrassingly now, 'Look Homeward, Angel' by Johnnie Ray on Philips. I loved the colourful labels, I loved the smell and the feel, I even loved having to wind the machine up when the turntable began to revolve too slowly. And of course I loved the sound and a passion for recorded music began then and has never waned.
So what became of those records? Well sadly my sister who is ten years younger than me decided one day to test her new found walking skills and toddled into the bedroom and right across the records that I had left lying on the floor. I don't think that they were all shattered but certainly some of my favourites were. The experience at least taught me never to leave my own records in the vicinity of my sister.
To return to the book in question in which the author sets out on a quest to track down and meet some of the small band of obsessive collectors of what we generally just refer to as 78's. I almost inserted the word 'old' in there but as production ceased in the early 1960's, the word is somewhat superfluous. Nevertheless there exists a group of people who are prepared to devote their lives, and an awful lot of cash, on tracking down very rare examples of this format of music reproduction.
So, Ms Petrusich discusses the well known figure of Harry Smith who curated and edited the famous and wonderful collection entitled 'The Anthology of American Folk Music'. Smith died in 1991 but among those who are, or have been carrying on the quest for this rare music, are John Heneghan, Christopher King, John Tefteller, James McKune, Nathan Salsburg, Joe Bussard and the only female in the bunch, Sarah Bryan. I confess that with the exception of Smith and Joe Bussard, none of these names meant anything to me.
The fact that there is only one female listed, confirmed one of my stereotypical thoughts, that this is a male dominated area. I also carried mental pictures of middle aged or elderly men with long hair and beards, who were predominantly single. For the most part, my views were confirmed, though there were obvious exceptions.
As to why people become so obsessed with collecting generally is dealt with and provided me with a fascinating, though not always comfortable insight. At times the descriptions were just a little too close for comfort as I recognised some of the behavioural tendencies in people I regard as friends and, dare I say it, even in myself. The thing that concerned me about some (and I stress, some) of the characters in the book, was the compulsion to collect, yet with little or no intention of ever playing the items collected. Personally I have never understood that mentality as for me the music is everything. Why pursue a piece of music for years, pay a fortune for it and then never actually listen to it? Thankfully some of the characters were of like mind and Ms Petrusich described how the collectors expressed delight and excitement upon hearing certain pieces of music.
Through this book, I rapidly came to realise that without this group of people, a great deal of music originally released on 78's would now be lost to us. As the format was replaced by vinyl records, cassettes, CD's and MP3 files, the use of these fragile, shellac records has diminished and consequently thousands of them have been consigned to rubbish bins or to languish in dark corners of attics or basements. Also most of the original metal master discs have been lost or destroyed so there remains only one way of preventing the music disappearing into history. Find a copy of the record and reproduce it onto a more durable format that can be enjoyed by current or future generations.
And this is exactly what has been happening. Take for example a collection that I own entitled 'Down in the Basement (Joe Bussard's Treasure Trove of Vintage 78's)' which, as the title suggests, was sourced from 78 RPM records collected by Bussard over the past 50 years. Besides other rarities, this album includes the track 'Original Stack O'Lee Blues' by Long 'Cleve' Reed and Little Harvey Hull, a track that would have been lost to us all but for Bussard's one copy. A sobering thought!
Thanks to Bussard, we can now all enjoy this great blues piece. Click here if you don't believe me.
The book also references other collections that I own or am familiar with. For example the superb collection, 'The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records Vol 1' which was issued last year on Jack White's Third Man Records. Ms Petrusich even made a journey to view the site of the Grafton, Wisconsin factory where the records were produced and in the least interesting part of the book, describes her preparation, training and subsequent scuba dive into the murky Milwaukee River to try to recover some discs which may or may not have been dumped there when the plant closed. (I did tell you that these people were obsessed).
Perhaps the most poignant part of the book deals with a collector named Don Wahle who appears to have ended his days in squalor but left behind a huge record collection. Collector Nathan Salsburg rescued those that he could and subsequently compiled a collection along the same lines as 'The Anthology of American Folk Music', where the songs are sorted into different categories. This three disc album was issued through Tomkins Square in 2012 and covers music from 1923 to 1936. It is called 'Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard' and since release it has deservedly garnered great reviews. This may well be a subject I return to in my occasional 'Box Sets' series.
For now from this collection, I leave you with a fascinating track recorded in 1930 in two parts (one on each side of the 78 record). The track is 'Flat Wheel Train Blues' as recorded by Red Gay (fiddle) and Jack Wellman (guitar) and is a train blues with a difference, being the most evocative version of this genre I have ever heard. Listen particularly to part two in which a mule standing by the side of the track attempts to outrun the train. As Salsburg describes it, "It is hilarious and beautiful and melancholy'.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
'Flat Wheel Train Blues'
The book 'Do Not Sell At Any Price' is published by Scribner and I highly recommend it.
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