The Department of Afro-American what I was hearing. Studies and the Archives of Traditional In the early fifties, Bloomington, In­ Ugbwe? Music applaud Westwood One for this diana wasn't exactly alive with exciting contribu tion to Indiana University's new music. You got classical at the uni­ What's a poem to do, ongoing efforts to provide source ma­ versity, highly commercialized coun­ For the lullabies "printing through," terials that broaden our knowledge try and western in town, and Perry On a tape in a drawer, about the music traditions of Black Como on the radio station. You got Recorded many years before. America. Frankie Lane and Doris Day and Kay Starr, who did "hot" numbers. This tiny tribe of a few hundred, By the Tiv they were surrounded. * Archives accession numbers 84-186/ I became addicted and sent off money regularly to Randy's, which is where a Lullabies were all he had, 209-F, 84-315/~37-B, and 84-1360/1426- For the machine of Great White Dad. B. lot of my 78s came from. By the time Elvis came out with "Hound Dog," I Are those folks gone? Portia K. Maultsby, Indiana University was telling people he was a phony rip­ ping off Big Mama Thornton, except What about their songs? one didn't say "ripping off" back in Sung mom to child, those days. Filed for a while. By 1953, I had shelves for the 78s in one of my clothes closets. The same ~ From the Vault ~ year, I read a book called Mister Jelly Charles Keil, State University of New York Roll, by Alan Lomax. It was going at Buffalo Confessions of a Collector around in high school because it was "hot," being about New Orleans and dented to be sure, but running just Having accumulated about two houses of prostitution and all. The mu­ fine. I got the Yancey Session 12" 78s thousand 78 rpm records between 1947 sic sounded interesting, so I wandered though, among others. and 1960, I find myself asked by the into a record shop downtown and After that it was all over. I started editor of Resound to give some expla­ asked for some records by Jelly Roll haunting junk shops, both in Bloom­ nation for this state of affairs. Morton. The salesman broke up laugh­ ington and Indianapolis. When I hit The records fall in several groups. ing. Being a shy kid, I retreated and sixteen and could drive, I put ads for First, Afro-American music, from the went into another record store, the Re­ old records in the Bloomington and generally tasteless white imitations of cord Bar, at 108 N. Grant Street, run county papers. I went to San Francisco the 1910s, through country blues, ur­ by Nick Patique (?), who said, "Sure, with my parents in 1955 and bought ban blues, spirituals, preachers and how many do you want?" I was so three hundred more 78s of old time congregations, ragtime, 1950s Chi­ innocent I didn't even think it odd that country music from Jack's Record Cel­ cago, Detroit and Los Angeles blues, somebody would be selling Jelly Roll lar, mostly 1920s and 1930s material. including vocal groups, and so forth. Morton 78s in a record store in 1953. There will always be a warm spot in Second, everything else, including About a year later he had to leave my heart, however, for the Rone Music 1920s and 1930s southern mountain town very suddenly, which didn't sur­ Company in Bloomington, Indiana. In ballad and string band music, early prise me, since I had learned he was a the 1950s they had a huge, huge store white jazz, swing, and a variety of jazz fan as well as a record dealer, and on the second floor of a building on vaudeville acts and minstrel shows. hung out with all kinds of Bohemian Kirkwood Avenue on the square. You Although I got started in about 1947, types. He offered to sell me his per­ went up a long flight of stairs, walked when I was ten, with some records of sonal collection of jazz 78s, plus a lot in the door, and saw rack after rack my aunt's and a wind up Victrola, I of his stock, for $75.00, as he said he after rack of 78s. They had everything didn't pick up much speed until about had to raise money fast. This came to from Stanley Brothers 78s to Louis Jor­ 1950 or so. Then one night I got, on about five hundred 78s. I got in a lot dan. I regularly carried home stacks my little kid's radio, a broadcast from of trouble at home when I told my par­ from there as well. WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee. It was ents that one. In 1953, $75.00 was a Then along came 45s, and LPs, and very late, so I had to pretend to be great deal of money. You could get a the 78s began to dry up. They were big asleep and listen with my bedroom fairly good running Ford for that, old and heavy and easily broken, and to lights out and the radio under the cov­ carry a lot around you needed a good ers so my parents wouldn't think I was back and a car. In a sense, the exter­ still up. But, after 11:15 p.m., on came UBy 1953, I had shelves for the 78s mination of the 78 by the 45 was an early victory of electronic miniaturi­ a disk jockey named Gene Nobles, in one of my clothes closets. The zation over mechanics on a mass scale. sponsored by Randy's Record Shop in same year I read a book called Mis­ Gallatin, Tennessee. ter Jelly Roll .... The music Gene Nobles played lots of 78s. His Thomas F. Barton, Jr., New York City sounded interesting, so I wandered 78s were by Lightning Hopkins, B.B. King, The Rockets, John Lee Hooker, into a record shop downtown and Over the past twenty years, Mr. Barton Big Boy Spires, Little Boy Spires, Little asked for some records by Jelly Roll has loaned the Archives of Traditional Mu­ Walter, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Morton. The salesman broke up sic several hundred records to copy and make John Brim, The Clovers, and The Dom­ laughing. " available to the public in its Listening Li­ inoes. I went crazy. I couldn't believe brary. 5