Original subtitles

here's my jiggle shake hands with me

she's a darling

she's a my baby you wanna shake hands again

oh well

I've done gone right

that's good enough

here's my here's one of the gems of gems

take a load of that

that beautiful

and we sit around in the middle here

cause we don't have a lot of time

but let's see what we do here one time

gonna get a note on here it's impossible

close this note on harmonica coming up close this note

no sis no it's impossible

I'll blow that jug

that's my music you fantastic

I'll just call mom call

I'll swing that girl around a boy

I'll swing that girl around a boy

hello let's go south

is that incredible

the can heat pool that's been almost 40 years ago now

I guess

well they came up here one night

and they just played in Morrison

they had a lot of money you know

and over

there was about 3,000 duplicates and they got into them

the whole place was just wild

everybody talking this guy got over there and he says

Joe

how much you want for the Smokehouse Charlie Champion

I'll give you $50 for it I said sold

cause I only wanted a dollar for it

and it kept going and I had a little bit of money

and I built a swimming pool out here the can heat pool

the 20s was the greatest time as far as I'm concerned

they had that wonderful sound

I don't know what it was you know

you know you've heard it on the record

you know people had time and they lived their music

it's the way they were it's the way they lived

they had a god given talent

it was just one time

about 12 years and it was gone

if you're into 78 RPM records

he has the best collection probably in the world

at least the most diverse

he has a lot of records

but everything he has is just fantastic

and in excellent condition

I'm trying to remember when I found out about him

it must have been pretty early on

was it before the movie or after the movie

when did the movie come out

2001 I think probably right around the same time

after you watch that thing

there's nothing else you wanna do but go out and like

try to find records

every time you go see Joe

it's just a preview of what he has

so many great jazz and blues and country

stuff that you probably will only see in the basement

so you know why not

I'm rusty I'll tell you that

I ain't played in a while

7 11

named the store after it

1936 and I just hit the 80 Mark

not doing too bad mother played the piano and organ

daddy didn't never

he was in he like Russ Morgan

Carl and bagel

I like Gene Autry

but when I started going out

I found early Gene Autry so boy

I like him then I heard Jimmy Rogers

which is 100 times better

that's where it would really lit the fuse first

I Learned more and more nobody showed me anything

and it would nothing go out on a record trip

come back four or five hundred records on a weekend

never everywhere on a trip

when I went down to Virginia for a trip to

three or four days it took me a half an hour to air

just carry them all in boxes full of

stacked up on this good stuff

you don't see nothing that's gone

hmm

been here been here 50 years I guess now

shells I had built when I built the house

I think 15,000 all together

I mean it

I filled it in over the years

whoo well that's ever rusty

I'm afraid I wouldn't make Paramount Records

I'm Devin Flattery of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

I'm going to now play and sing you an old song

that was lost in the building of King Solomon's Temple

and in lady years been resurrected

and I call it how many biscuits can you eat

well I just wanted the Joe Show

and I it's just the Mecca of record collectors I

I he's just this figure that you just gotta go visit

you know um

I just wanna hear records that I

don't think I'll ever find in my lifetime

but I still have time of course it's

it's hearing records as they should be heard as well

you got the the full setup

you know you have the

you have the uh

you have the the immaculate sound system

and you have all the n minus

e plus copies of everything

it's like going back in time

it's like an American music archive

it's perfect why wouldn't I come

how many biscuits can you eat this morning

this morning how many biscuits can you eat this morning

this morning how many biscuits can you eat

44 and a ham of meat this morning for breakfast

very good

good Lord of Friday hahaha

oh yeah hahaha

see how beautifully that's recorded

we couldn't get a recording that good

it doesn't sound like a bass

well

country music is over in 55

jazz was over in 33 blues

struggle on I remember that freaking Elvis Presley

oh god

and then the Beatles oh

and there's Everly Brothers

oh my god and after hearing the Blue Sky Boys

who wants to hear them I mean

when I was hunting fine records

all that stuff was going on

it was enjoyable it's not enjoyable anymore

it's all money

this is fantastic times that will never be again

it's the way people lived

you can tell that they were like what they were doing

they got a little money fine

the 50 bucks is usually what they got

even the jazz bands everything

it's not even emoting

just the

way that rhythm had a Kansas city's Rhythm and the King

Oliver all of them

I mean Jelly Roll Morton

oh she's genius

there was a guy never got the credit

he was a genius

you go the day nobody's ever heard of him

is that a fish cutter

Paramount Jeanette

um

well champion 1

actually Jeanette made those

Victor Columbus good stuff

major labels

I mean it's good stuff in all

that's all those labels

you find the right ones

you just gotta find them

I mean I stayed in Bluefield and this old guy

we're right across the motel

was a gas station where we got gas

and this old guy was pumping gas one evening

and I showed him a record

I said you got any of those things

he gave me this guy's address

so he ran a hardware store

so I got the phone cost $1 to call across the mountain

best dollar I ever spent

I got to store he's not here right now

he's at the house I said well

give me the number up there

and I got him on the phone

it was $2

yeah I got some records over here

I said well

can I look at me sell some

yeah come on over

so it took us long we had to go all the way up

and all the way back down

to get on the other side of the mountain

it's a little town we parked

on the sidewalk and there was a hardware store

we walked in it was like going back in the 20s

big old round bulb lamps hanging down

that's tall with the flowers

you know all around

he said the records are upstairs

we got on a freight elevator

this nail could have beat us up

I could die we finally got to the second floor

and we walked out on a balcony

and halfway out was a shelf

with at least 10,000 records in it

I reached up

the first thing I pulled out was sobbing blues

King Oliver and okay Mint

next one was dead man blues vocalion

just kept going jackass blues

oh my God

yeah

that's why I stained my underwear

there was everything and anything

everything was a gym

carried them downstairs he comes over and said

how many did you get I said

I don't know he was up the sleeve

you know like that

I said I don't even count him

how about 100 bucks for the whole work

take them out of here

I floated out

so then we need boxes

across the street was SK

I think it's SK Cross dime store

big sign 5 and dime

same sign from the 30s you know

and I walked down I said

do you have any old cardboard boxes

said yeah

they're in the basement

said be careful going down the steps cause they weren't

they had big old switch clunk and we're down and crunch

we're walking on records oh my God

they picked them up

they were Romeos in original sleeves

Crossroad Blues Robert Johnson

brand new when they stepped on it

broke a piece out of it I was sick

there was another one there and there was Buddy Holly

the floor was covered I ran back upstairs

I said where these records come from

she said we had hundreds

and we took them to the dump two weeks ago

so what they did they pulled them out

the shells and whatever fell on the floor is walked on

if I wouldn't have hit that good across the street

Bam hahaha

that was one whale of a trip

they're out there someplace

is this a chance who knows

what's your definition of hell

hell would be at a place where there's every beautiful

record ever made in mint condition

the finest playback system in the world and no needles

that would be hell

I don't like it

there you go

that's enough

I'm

a little lad who had a little lad who had a little

lad

early jazz

uh early country

string bands is the better part of the collection

early blues Cajun bluegrass

gospel you name it

mostly in the twenties uh

up into the 50s

but the bulk of the collection is in the 20s and 30s

that's when uh

probably the greatest performances were

as far as country music and blues

was in the 1920s jazz as

far as I'm concerned was over 1933

a lot of people argue with me over that

but um

when I talk about jazz

I'm talking about the beautiful sound

tone of the instruments that was gone by 33

country music died about 52

and blues survived a little bit

there's still a little blues around

if you go in the right places

you can hear it but it's mostly it's R&B stuff now

55 was the last of country music

I don't care what they say

it was the last of it it went uptown

it went to the Bong Bong

Bong and I'm a teenage queen

bumble bumble

bumble bumble and

you know and this kind of stuff

the country part was lost

the world was changing rock and roll was taken over

and that's

that's what happened there

I think rock probably I call it the cancer music

I hate to be that way but that it ruined everything

oh well

rock and roll wasn't allowed

was not allowed

I used to listen to it at my friend's house

and then I mean

my dad had even opinion on bluegrass

if it had like an electric bass in it

it was it was garbage

my dad is very judgmental with people

except if they like his music

and then he accepts them wholeheartedly

and it doesn't matter where they're from

or what they look like or anything

if they like the music

they're okay well

he treated he

treat him like anybody else that would would

would go in there that weren't rock and roll

he treat him exactly the same

he'd play music till his fingers fell off

you know listen to this one

listen that one listen this one

they'd say do you have anything by so and so

are you kidding this is Frederick Maryland

it's about an hour west of Baltimore

once a thriving farming community

now it's more of a suburb for the big city

most of what used to be prime farmland

has been turned into what Joe calls breeding pens

this is Joe Joseph E Bussard Jr

local celebrity kind of

to people in Frederick

he's simply the guy with the records

that's constantly complaining

to people in say Sweden

he's the only thing in Frederick

Maryland of note

you could say the same for people in DC

Baltimore or Boston as well

but Sweden just sounds a lot more impressive no

back when Frederick was a farming community

Joe's father Joe Bussard senior

was also a bit of a local celebrity

he owned the farmer supply store

that kept the little town going

the store was opened in 1912 by his father

before him

my grandfather was very tight and very conservative

but my grandfather was always like the breadwinner

I mean he was the one that like

paid the bills

his bills and like half of my father's bills as well

so he had a reason to be cautious

my grandmother

was the one that would just break the bank

I mean the woman had no

when she died she made her will

she gave away like a couple hundred thousand dollars

more than she actually had

she just did not know I mean

she's like

you can have this much and you can have that much

so it was like two total extremes

Young Joe was born into this opulent family

an only child

and as you can imagine was ultimately spoiled rotten

here he is in Atlantic City with his parents

feeding seagulls and kicking them

he was definitely a handful

I can definitely see why they only have one child

cause and he was terrible as a child in school

and he tells my daughter stories

he uh

blew out the pipes in the school

by lighting cherry bombs

and flushing them down the toilet

and blew the pipes out

and he used to throw all the textbooks out the window

and then the teacher couldn't find them

and put a snake on the teacher's chair and stuff

nowadays that you would be like in huge trouble

but this was back in the 50s

so everybody handled a little bit better

which I think is funny

cause he talks about kids nowadays

even when I was growing up

he was like oh

kid nowadays are just in trouble

they're into all this stuff

and I was like oh yeah dad

and you never did anything did

you well

that was just that was just good fun

yeah so

his teachers probably have a different opinion of him

in 1943 a six year old

Joe was listening to the Golden age of country

and wanting more sadly

he found that for some reason there was no more

the music of the decades before him had somehow

mysteriously stopped

all music changed and

and the real pure stuff like in

you know in the mid

late 20s that kind of music was gone

it just disappeared

I don't I don't

I don't I don't

I don't I don't I don't

the 1920s and 30s

at that particular period of time

there was more traditional music

preserved on commercial phonograph records

at any other time in the history of recordings

the records were made on a base of clay

and different types of shellac

and pressed

most of the records from the major companies

like Columbia and Victor

were very high quality recordings

although the buyers of the records

heard very little of what actually was recorded

due to the fact they were playing them on crude

acoustical I wind up the trolleys

what a whale of a record

hi welcome to Maryland hahaha

I first met Joe 2 years ago

I was in there to do a story on him

and you never forget

when you go in his basement for the first time

because it's like going into another world

not only was the music loud

you know the smoke was thick

he was dancing

it was hard to even get a line on what was going on

and after I got to know him more you

you sense the real

aesthetic theory behind all that enthusiasm

and when I first interviewed him on the phone

I had to hold the phone about here

cause that's how excited he was to get a call

and this is probably two years ago

and just from that phone conversation

I knew this guy is different than the other collectors

I'd talked to there's something going on here

and I think his collection is

is such that it's almost been uh

widdle down to the jewels

I mean he just doesn't have a lot of junk

a lot of people have a lot of records

but he's got a lot of good ones

let me see I had a Victrola when I was 5 years old

I still got it it was my father's

and neighbors would bring records by

and I was fascinated by records

later on

when I got into my I'm 12 years old

so I heard I like Gene Autry

so I went around look for Gene Autry records

and then one time I heard Jimmy Rogers

that's that did it

and I went to the record store and it was 1948

I want anything you got by Jimmy Rogers

and they went through the book

never heard of him see

but by that time Victor had

pulled all that stuff off

I think it was 45

they pulled all the last records like that on

they were on Bluebird and Carter Family

all repressed

so I heard where he had sold so many records

so I started going out and asking

and there was a woman sitting on the stoop

on the street and I asked her

she said I got some

she bought a box out must have been 50 records in

it says just take them

and there was two Jimmy Rogers in there

but was some other stuff

things I like say I like this too

I don't like this guy you know

this and that and this and that

but the

the real thing came when I got my driver's license

when I was 16 then I went all over the place

that's when I ventured down in Virginia

and found Carter Family and I love them

you know I didn't know a thing about records

I mean who

how many were made and who

or what you know

and all that I had to learn as I went

but I went every day I could

so you were going to people's houses door to door

just randomly well

I could look at the house and say that's

you know I don't want to go to a new house

you want one that's old looking

and the they

I bought them off the people that bought them

cause they were in their 60s in

you know maybe 70

so they had them and they kept them

I went to this door one time

I knocked on the door

I looked through the screen door and I said

a big wind up in the hallway

I said oh boy

I gotta turn on the charm ha ha

and I you know

people sold they didn't

you know they didn't

nobody wanted them really

I mean they weren't worth anything then

and I went all over the place

met people everywhere so I went out on the weekend

come home with 500 records

couple dollars a stack sometimes 50 cents a piece

a quarter a piece

oh let me see that one

well the one time I'm on this hunt

I hit a bunch of houses and found some nice records

and they kept telling me about this old lady

that had records but the way they described it

it was like 25 miles away on 10 back roads

so I really didn't play all that much attention

you know and I made

I went on all kind of roads

here and there and here and there

and I came down the road there was this old house

that sat on the right side of the road

if I remember and it looked good

it looked like if you brazed the wind up

records would slide out

and there was an old man on the porch and um

I asked him no

we never had none them talking machines

but you see that mailbox down there

I said yeah

he said

that old lady's got all kind of records back there

so I went it was a foot

path you had to walk back

you couldn't you know

you couldn't drive back it was about a mile

and I went over a foot log over a creek

up over a hill and there was a house

old stone house of smoke coming out of the chimney

this was in the summertime

I want knocked on the door

is this 1950s early 60s probably come on in

well in that situation

you gotta let him know that you're a stranger

you know you screen for any of this local person

and just walk right in but I didn't do that

I let them know who that I wasn't around that locally

you know and she had a big wind up stuff full

and three or four boxes

and I picked out 300 records and we worked out a deal

and I got a reasonable I didn't know at the time

the rarest Carter Family record ever made was in there

I picked it out which record is that

Bear Creek Blues Conquer sold for one day

um from certain Sears store

I don't think they only had a few copies

I don't know how that came about

the other side came out on two other labels

it was just the Bear Creek Blue side

it was cut in Chicago 1940

they they had a big session fact that really great

whoever run that session knew what they were doing

for sound quality so I had to drag him

I got to the foot log I took my pants off

my shoes and put the records on the foot log and drum

slide them across real slow

because if they'd fell in there

they'd been gone

and when I got back on the other side

then I redressed and uh drugged him for a mile

till I got down where I could see the car

and then I got smaller boxes and walked back up

I didn't find out about the Carter Family record

till later on

and the guy in Chicago didn't believe it existed

and he came all the way down to take a look at it

pretty rare um

it's been how many years

57 years or more since I found it

never seen another one the mythology that I hear

or the folklore that I hear

is that

you have the only complete set of Carter Family

records in existence

I believe there might be one other set

um I'm not sure I know one fellow that has them all

but to conquer that's the big one

and it just happened that they had a few copies

I don't think it was 100 or less

and so one day I was in Nashville in 57 man Jim

he wanted to go to Opry we

kept we were down in Florida and I got a sunburn

you wouldn't believe

I couldn't touch anything for a week

so we came back up I wanna go to the opera

I said you're gonna be disappointed

I said no

used to go this is 57

I said oh

I wanna go alright

so we went it was a Friday night

it was awful some guy down on the stage

beating that boop out of a snare drum

I said that's it

I'm going to get my money back and Jim said

I'm getting mine back so we went up front

so my mother back why

what's wrong I said

what's wrong I come down here

country music that some idiot beat the drum

ha ha

so we see after 55 everything went to poop

did you at least

were there any names on the Opry that night

with Roy Acuff or Bill Monroe

no no

no no

Roy Acuff lived on the Opry

at the Opry to keep it traditional

he did everything he could until he died

and that was the end of it

anyway we went downstairs and I ran into Sam McGee

one of the best country guitar players ever lived

and we ended up back of the Opry house

in his old Chevrolet car for four hours

him telling stories and I didn't have a tape recorder

oh

he said they had a banjo contest

where the performer performed behind a curtain

so nobody could tell who it was

and he won he beat out Dave making

and Dave was making was ready to eat all

Sam played a six string banjo guitar

oh he made one record

that one what was that one

uh Chevrolet car

an easy rider what a record

Bocian I issued in 28

I found three copies in a store

brand new

I wish they had the other two now

but he was a he was unbelievable

he said they making

worried him to death to go to New York

Said Sam

come on go to New York

they'll love you up there

they'll work they'll make a record of you

and he said I really didn't want to go

he said Fanny talked me into it

he said we drove from Nashville to Knoxville

took three days he said every creek we came to

you had to put water in that damn dough

mold tea hahaha

and they had no bridges

you had to drive through the rivers those days

and they went up there and uh

he recorded Knoxville Blues

which I have a beautiful copy of

Buck Dancer's Choice and Franklin Blues

that's a hard one to find

and he

I had this record of Knoxville blues that I found near

Front Royal Virginia

it had this terrible feedback boom

boom boom

boom boom

boom boom boom

when Uncle Dave was on there talking

he said hello folks

this is Sam McGee from Tennessee

just to get right let's

go Sam and he picked the guitar and Uncle Dave would

you know I guess yeah

born to die you know

and it had this terrible feedback

so I found another copy that didn't have it

so I asked Sam about that

he said yeah

he said they had problems

he said we had to do it over somehow another

the stamper got mixed in and they pressed a few copies

before they found out about it

I've never found another copy with the feedback in it

now the other

the other one I I fell in Asheville

Kentucky found it like a E+ copy in the big trove

I still got that

and I was to find that record in that condition

he's an unbelievable guitar player

played open d three fingers style on it

best records were made were Columbia

anything'cause they were laminated

they had this it looked like pancakes

and they had a mixture of tar and stuff

they put um

they put one pancake a label down

facing up you know

out then they put one of the tar

then they in the middle was a block of this

like tar or whatever mixture

then they put another pancake over on top

and then stick the label on that

put it in that thing you know

and stick it in 70 tons

and that was your record it had a good surface

anything clumsy pressed

if you had a test pressing on vinyl

right off the same stamper

it wouldn't be any better than the record pressed

I've heard people much smarter than me

saying that that was

the best quality records were ever made

I mean what they were doing was fantastic

you only hear through my speaker system at home

Western Electric of course

had it they invented it

uh in 1920

but none of the companies

wanted to touch it'cause it was too expensive

so they went on with the horn

acoustical mechanical

there was a guy in Chicago that made a label called

autograph extremely rare

in 1925 he was recording electrically

you could tell it

he was ahead of everybody

and then in 1925 when radio was ready in rodding

in Columbian Victor they had the Bucks finally got it

that revolutionized records

but I think if you had to pick the surface

Paramount's were

oh ho ho

Paramount Furniture company

they scraped the sawdust off of

off the floor

mixed it with molasses and tar

pressed Paramounts hahaha

and some of the best stuff in the world was on that I

I mean I got some Paramounts to play

beautiful and then some that look good but terrible

well say you have a large collection

but it's a very very high quality

yeah I

I slimmed it down I'm down to 15,000 now

I sold a few things I'm not getting any younger

and I might as well you know

guy offers big money for record

I've sold some most of it's early country

well Ike Robertson

Sally Goodin 1922

country music was over in 55

after that was bluegrass uh

also collect um

swing early swing

but uh

black gospel black lady singers

black blues

uh Cajun

you know all kinds of stuff

see the trouble with me

when I when I was collected

I collected all of it most of the time

a guy that collected jazz

you know he picked up some good country stuff

I'll trade you for a jazz record

I didn't couldn't do that because I

I wanted to keep everything

I liked all of it

oh I got a lot I

I canvassed uh Johnson City

Tennessee years ago for the Richatone Records

they were only sold down there

and you would just go door to door to people's houses

we went to radio stations

and they were dumping all that stuff

oh yeah

I went to house house

oh yeah

that's fun I want to be sure that people know that

when you were doing this

most people didn't want this stuff

no there was

there might have been a few other guys out doing it too

you know I went to one house

lady came out and was talking

she said well

there were two men here a month ago looking for records

and I didn't like them

she liked me

and they're the ones that's got the good stuff

because she had all kind of Mcgum rewards

Blue Sky Boys in decent shape

they're my favorites that's great stuff

oh yeah

they were beautiful

14 and 17 years old when they recorded in 1936

but it's all kind of stuff like that

I got a lot of jazz

jazz was over in 33

after that forget it

oh by the way

um all records up until late 28 were 76 RPM

all played everybody plays them too fast

we wonder why Sarah Carter's voice sounded so high

on those Victor Bristol saxophones

so we started slowing them down

we got them down to 76 and it was normal

and in fact

I had a guy came in with a bass saxophone

you ever see one of those things

yeah

and he can play it I put on some Frankie Trimble

I think that's the way you pronounce it

he had big sax on that and he says something wrong

he says the sax is out of tune

he says Joe

he says saxes don't go out of tune

so I started slowing down

we got down to 76 he said

that's it

that's that's where it was recorded at

so all all the stuff I play on the radio

I play at 76 that's a normal speed

I think by 29 or 30 they went to 78

but I I said I went out every time I had any money I

I went out I mean

when I first started gas was 16

17 cents a gallon

you took 50 bucks

you could stay out a week

um you could get a nice lunch

hot beef sandwich

mashed potatoes and a Coke for 50 cents

I spent more money on eats than I did records

yeah you got to see the real America

yeah I got in some weird places man

all kind of stuff it

um Bluefield

Virginia was a good place

the blacks and the whites had jobs

railroad and coal mine so they bought records

and there was a Blue Field Music company

handled all the labels I used to find them

you know Blue Field Music Company

open evenings ha ha

and that's where I've below

there's where I found the black patties

uh the one is the only known copy

did you know what it was when you found it

no I I

I went out looking for this flea market

and I made a wrong turn

ha ha the best wrong turn I ever made

and I got down the road about a mile

and there's this fellow

walking up the other side of the road

and I stopped I said

where's the feed market he's up there

I said you going up there

and he said yeah

I was hop in

I always had somebody with me when I went on trips

cause somebody watch the car when I was in the house

you know and we had the tape player going

he's all you getting that on the radio

I said no

he said yeah

that makes sense he knew better

but nothing like that on the radio

and I told him he's looking for old records

and he said I got a bunch of them back at the house

so we went to the flea market

which was nothing

so we went back to his house and about 20 miles

he lived up the back of an old trailer court

you all seen that place

I would have never found that road anyway

he had a live in the shotgun shack

you know what that is don't you

and we walked halfway through and went on

right turn in the bedroom

and he pulled this box out from under the bed

it must have had 3 feet of bed

dirt and dust looks like snowing

like a blizzard

you know

and there was a Uncle Dave making a Bocian

pretty worn a Carter Family

a few other Charlie Pool

and then I hit the first black Patty

I was oh my lord

I said Jeez

I laid it aside

got picked out two three

I reckon there was two black patties

there was three there was four

oh my god I got 15 out there

he said you kind of like them

don't you I said yeah

they're really weird I said

where did you get those he said

some man gave them to my daughter or my sister in 1920

said we didn't like them so they shoved them in

a box and shoved them under the bed

waiting for me to come along

80 years later and get them

anyway I

I got back home and I called Mike Stewart

he was a good friend of mine

ex the guitar player

he passed away a couple years ago

and he was dealing in records

had auctions I said Mike

I hit it this time 15 Black Panther

oh give

don't give me any of that boop hahaha

he what are they

and I started reading them off

and I got to the long Cleveland

papa Harvey Hall and didn't hear anything

Mike you still there

he says I'll call you back

About 10 minutes later phone ring

hi Joe

this is Bernie Klatzko in New York

he said I heard about your terrific fine

says you gonna be home tomorrow

I wanna come down I gotta hear this record

I said yeah

so he came down and he like

oh my god

oh my god

you know

he said here's $10,000

would you sell it for that

I said no

so he he said well

take 800 of it and put it on tape

I want to put it out on my LP

so I I taped it for him

and the next day

Don Kent called

I heard you about your beautiful fine

I said yeah

Bernie's been down here what do you

what do you offer you hahaha

I said 10 grand

he said I'll double it I

said no

I don't want to sell it I said

Bernie gave me $800 $400

decided to put it on LP he said

I'll give you $800 I said

I'll wait put it out later

so they did and then other people got to hear it

and now it's way up and way up

well the black patties

there were like three or four really great ones

Jeanette Records pressed them from Maya Williams

he wanted them named after Black Patty

which was a black opera singer

I got a beautiful picture for it all

and when she performed she wore peacock feathers

so the label which Fred Jeanette pressed

Jeanette Records Preston

Indiana had the top of the label

you ever seen one yeah

you know the top was a whole peacock

with his feathers spread out

beautiful unbelievable label

they had real artists it's one of the prettiest labels

and there were 55 different ones

and a lot of them came out on Jeanette and champion

as well they're still rare on Black Patty

but the one I have is only on Black Patty

original stack of e blues

about e minus

they never played them that was a find of a lifetime

that's like finding the rarest thing you collect

and it's the only one Pete Wellen

he had a big collection but he put this magazine on

he said that he checked with every collector he knew

nobody's ever seen that record in any condition

and he believes that it is the only copy

now one may turn up

you never know

it's been 50 years since I found this one

that's my baby

I like that but it's a fantastic hobby

I mean to me

it's the best hobby there

the labels work of art and you can look at them

you can see them spinning around

but you can drop that needle down

and hear all that good music

no

we can go on all day we can go on all day

I really appreciate you sharing stories with me

no problem at all it's

it's fun it's beautiful that we could go on for

I gotta I

I've got enough for another air

you're gonna go looking for records right now

yeah I caseley

you know me and Bernie here uh

or Benny

we went out a few places and everything's closed today

now you know

I wish you guys luck on the

on the I did find a couple down here

I got them over here in the box beautiful

my name is Joe Bizard and I am a record collector

how I found out about Joe Buzzer was buying reissue

LPs of uh

old blues and country stuff and gospel in particular

and seeing his name will find print down at the bottom

like over and over and over again

and me and my buddies

who would sit and listen to these records

would sort of

any little thing we heard

about these guys who had these records

you know we would start passing around like oh

I heard so and So's a real jerk

and you know

this guy has a beef with that guy

and that's why you never see them working together

who runs this label anyway

yeah oh

is this this guy over here

well you might say today I'm an old hermit

because I can't go anywheres anymore

I can't stand to go anywheres

I can't stand to go into restaurants

they got this stupid stuff coming out of the ceiling

and that woman screaming

you go you go to a filling station

and they got it coming out the gas pumps

uh you go to the

to the little room in the back

and it's coming out of there

only something worse

noise is all there I don't know

maybe my sense of humor is gone

I don't know but I just can't dig it

people have have congregated at Joe's

because of that record collection

anybody interested in jazz eventually

has wound up at Joe's Place

anybody interested in blues to a serious degree

has ended up at Joe's place

and so on and so on

the normal family stuff didn't exist

it was Joe Buzzer and his records in the basement

that was it

kind of a history lesson it

it lets people hear you know

how things were it wasn't for people like Joe

we wouldn't be hearing some of this stuff

the the second you delve into any sort of

you know original American music you

you you know about Joe almost instantaneously

uh

and and it's not like I'm immersed in it the way

you know the

the the geeks are Joe's collection

Joe himself but the two

well the two are indivisible

it is an international resource

Joe Bessard's collection in terms of

of it's

the man's an archivist you know and

and and not enough value can be placed on that

I mean that's a

that's a cultural service

and that would be otherwise lost

I mean you can't

you can't Google that stuff

you know it

it's a if not for him

I mean the

the this music would just be gone forever

the people there's no well documented history of this

and and this is it

it's all on those records anyway

I was coming out the door

and here was this guy backing in

and had boxes of records

I did alright

I'm the one that keeps the family history

cause my dad doesn't remember anything

they were definitely

my dad was very pampered by my grandmother

you know whatever

whatever my father wanted

my grandmother did or gave to him

when I was a kid

probably 6 or 7 years old

I had a little big troll

people used to bring records by

we'd swap them

they'd leave some and I'd give them some more whatever

anyway that's when I first heard Gene Autry and

I just like Gene Autry

and I went around and I gave it up

all the Gene Autry records I could find

one day by chance I heard Jimmy Rogers

and when I heard Jimmy Rogers

man I

I I flipped out

you know his voice was so much better than

you know I couldn't believe it

he was the greatest singer that ever lived

and nobody go beat Jimmy Rogers

I don't care who it is

so I went to the record store in 1947 here in town

don't have anything by never heard of him

well you know I

I heard where he sold

all these hundreds of thousands of records

Jimmy Rogers I said these gotta be somewhere around

so I started asking people

and this old lady

I asked her and she gave me a box of records

but that hi

and there were two Jimmy Rogers in there

everybody does in Hawaii is what I remember

but there was other stuff in there

I said hey man

this ain't bad hey

this is not bad this guy stinks

Jimmy Rogers him and the Carter Family

were the only two ones selling any kind of records

during the Depression 31

32 and 33 it was really tough

all music changed

the depression

uh jazz didn't make it

uh

33 was probably the last jazz record

the real pure stuff like in

you know in the mid

late twenties that kind of music was gone

it just disappeared country

music as far as any you know

country songs are

are the beautiful part of the music was gone in 55

55 was the last of country music

I don't care what they say

it was the last of it it went uptown

it went to the Bong Bong Bong

and I'm a teenage Queen by my Bong Bong Bong and

you know and this kind of stuff

the country part was lost and the world was changed

rock and roll was taken over

I think rock probably I call it the cancer music

I hate to be that way but I it ruined everything

I feel the same way about Frederick

but I was able to leave it

you know Frederick's my hometown

I grew up there Joe's too

and Joe still thinks he owns the town

Joe thinks wherever whatever spot he's in

he owns that spot and nobody should infringe upon it

and it's it's stupid to think that anymore

you're gonna be infringed upon

there are too many people around here

and he he wants to have his place

his spot his tap root

doesn't want anybody to infringe on it

and he's living in a dream

you know he's living in a dream world

it's not the only way you're gonna escape it

is to get away from it go west young man

of course can you imagine moving that record collection

I'd hate to think about doing that one

I'm a record collector been

collecting for well over 50 years

early jazz

uh early country

string bands is the better part of the collection

early blues Cajun bluegrass gospel

you name it

I canvassed all around town

but then when I when I got my driver's license

then I started going out I'd hit

I hit the county first back in those days

a lot of dirt roads

people were kind of a little isolated

now it's all houses but then I got it

I started going in Virginia

and the first trip in Virginia

that's where I started hitting it

that's when I discovered the Carter Family

and all kinds of stuff I found records everywhere

and one thing LED to another

and I just kept going every day

every chance that I could get and looking for records

and then we went up we went up in this cold camp

and uh

the houses look so good they just look like God

they gotta have records in every one of them

you know no paint on them

you can smell the records

and uh

I went into Cole Camp

there's an old black guy sitting up on the porch

and I stopped I said

you got any old record yeah

so you come down with one record

you know I saw all this night

you were full and my God

it was blind Blake I couldn't believe it

I said you got any more like that

nope so I gave him a buck

for it so we went up in the

went up in the cold camp and knocked on doors

and this guy came I said

does it

you know if anybody here in the camp that has any ring

oh there's someone here got on

I know it's a big secret

so we went to the last house no luck

so I turned around

and I walked over to the edge of this bank

and there was a house down there

you could have

you could have throw a rock right down the chimney

straight down so we made our way around

come down knocked on doors all color lady

oh yeah I got some records come on in

that place was an antique dealer's dream

then they're set the little big troll

so I opened it up and the records are set on edge

you all have seen what was in there

I said what do you want for her

she said would a dollar piece be too much

I said here's $100 oh

that's too much I said take it

I couldn't have walked out of there

you know for I just couldn't do it

I had to give her something extra

what was in there

uh four or five mall rainy Paramounts like new uh

the Dixieland Jug Blowers

one I've been looking for for years in party blues

it was the only one I was missing uh

Clarence Williams Jazz Kings

Eva Taylor just beautiful stuff ready

here's another record please

yeah yeah

alright this is the record I found in Baltimore many

many years ago

the greatest jazz guy that ever lived Jelly Roll Morton

and I ran into a fellow from Silver Springs

I guess he's gone now nice fellow

he gave me a list of jazz records

I've never heard jazz

so I started going into some of the black neighborhoods

and that's where I found my first blues

of guy playing slide guitar ooh I about went nuts

and I found some of these jazz records

so I brought them home

and I washed them off and gave them a play

I said man

this is not bad either I don't I'm not gonna

I'm gonna keep these so then that's how I got in

from country over into blues and jazz

it was just something I liked

and I discovered a lot of other stuff

I my first uh

Cajun records Louisiana Cajun stuff with

you can't understand what you're saying

but the music's so good you know

great stuff man I'll tell you one thing

if I wanted to go out and got them records when I did

they'd all be thrown out cause people would have dumped

them come up sometimes are you

are you writing your

somebody doing interviewing you or somebody taping

no I don't know what they're doing

I don't know what they're doing

there are only three or four major collectors of 70

eights a lot of

people fool with collecting them

you know the time has passed uh

he hit it at the right time

not many people thought about doing it yet

and when you knocked on doors

I mean he was doing it long before I met him

long time before I met him

he was doing it coming back with records

so many records in the back of the car

that the bumper would drag on the ground

if he hit a bump the condition will never exist again

I mean you can't go do that anymore if

if we went out on a record trip now

and went back to the same areas we were in

I mean you might knock on 200 house

doors before you hits a house that had a 78 in it

and a lot of times

when we go to those places and knock on the door

oh we got rid of them about five years ago

we got rid of them two years ago

should have been here six months ago

we just you know

we used them

we ran out of wood and they burn really good

I don't know what makes them things burn so good

you know Schleich does burn good and hot

so uh

there you go I mean

what more can you say about it

so uh

this is this is a fiddle tune from Frank Levins called

Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss

anybody who's into this kind of music

is completely in debt to 78 collectors

because there's so much stuff

we never would have heard

if it wasn't for people like him

who just couldn't help but go out and collect them

falling in love with these old recordings

it's really made me appreciate

the people who are obsessed with collecting old records

because um

it takes a lot of time to find those records and

you know a lot of them are gone now

so it's people like Joe

who are preserving those records

and making them available to everybody

this is the important thing about Joe

I think is that there are number of people with

a small number of people with really big collections

but it's always been true of Joe

that if somebody wanted a record

to put it out to other people

to the rest of the world on an LP or a CD

Joe would always do it and so

Joe has been the conduit

through which records on a shelf in Frederick

Maryland get to be heard by people in Tokyo

and London and Berlin and for all I know in Moscow

wherever

there are people who buy reissues of all tiny music

and blues and jazz somewhere

Joe's finger has

Joe's hands have taken a record off a shelf

and made it possible for them to hear those records

and that's something for which he's owed

thanks from thousands of people

the modern old time scene

um

I'm not sure

I'm not sure it could possibly exist as it does

without the Seventy Eights

um there

you know there have been a lot of field recordings made

and stuff you know

of folks who were old in you know

the 60s and 70s

and a lot of people learn tunes from older folks

like Tommy Jarrell but um

but the Seventy Eights it's has

you know

that's where we get the incredible breadth of material

from otherwise

you know

we'd have like a few specific little pockets of

of musical influence you know

from the the old folks that

that folklore is

were smart enough to go out and collect from

and document

I just collected them because I enjoyed the music on

I had no idea they were gonna become really viable

you know and of course that was 50 years ago

he just

he had a way with people where they would invite him in

and they'd fix him dinner and

you know he would talk and he's very good at that

I mean he's very friendly

people meet him and they like him

and they really weren't worth anything

I mean

they were just these records that nobody really wanted

you know that were shoved away in attics and

and record players down in the south

from very poor people he just loved the music

he really loved what was on it

and he was just very good at getting them from people

we all appreciate a rare record

cause it might be one you never have heard before

here's a new sound nobody's heard before

there's a lot of records out there still nobody's found

there aren't any copies of them

and if you find it

think about the J as you get out of that

if you're the one that finds that record

you got the only copy of it

you're the first one listening to that

since the record was cut

that's pretty neat you know

I mean something

it's like going

like John Glenn doing the first deal with the

with the with the spaceship

my grandmother was like I said

she was always like

what do you want those old stupid hillbilly records for

what are you gonna do with them

put the kettle on her really like that one

here to start us off on our country classics here

right here at the W R E K

I wanna go back to uh

1926 and play a recording by the Uncle Dave Mackin

let's listen to Uncle Dave

he gets'em told quick the Bible's true

Uncle Dave Mackin and Sam McGee

yeah Lord yes

when I had that little

bootleg radio station in the basement

that was fun

and people used to bring records by

you want some records to play

Joe here

take a box you know

I got a lot of records that way

I always thought that was funny

just because I'd always heard about it from my

father and um

it was this you know

they were running this radio station

and the FCC finally tracked them down and came in

well I

I heard the story from my grandfather's point of view

which was they came to this house

and it was these men in suits

and my grandmother answered the door

and they were like does Mr Joseph Buzzard live here

and they're junior and senior

and she was like oh

good Lord what did Joe do

and she calls him at work and

and uh

she's like Joe

you have to come home there's government men here

and my grandfather comes flying home and um

I mean

my grandfather was the kind of person that got upset

very easily and I

I will never forget I can

I wish I would have been here to see that

when he actually had to meet these FCC people

about his son being in trouble

because my grandfather would have flipped

he would not have handled that well

and he's and my

my grandfather's like I just don't wanna talk about it

I don't wanna talk about that

it was awful you know

but uh

and dad thinks the whole thing's funny

I mean he tells the story and it's all hysterical

my grandfather was not happy hahaha

I love that one

have you ever get the blues

get your heart rate 49

everybody get your groove on

Get Your Heart Beat 49

I was hunting records around my Jackson

and I turned on the radio

and who did I hear but happy Johnny

Happy Johnny or Johnny Zuful is his real name

is the last name in the phone book

he was I loved John he

he played anything

and uh

here he was already I'm so

my golly I'm going up to see him

and he knew I was hello Joe

hey my golly

seen you a long time that's what he talked

and I we were talking

I said what do you think about thinking up a program

and call it country classics

and play some Carter Family and Uncle Dave

and stuff like that he said

you do it I'll play it

so I made up

the first one I made right there in Old Betsy

my first show was 1955 I was only 17

Joe was a

he was a notable in that whole area over there

down through all those valleys and hollows

I mean everybody knew who Joe Buzzard was

those people loved that music

and he had the only game in town

you know when he first went on that radio station

he got hundreds of letters

and it dwindled over the year

but those hundreds of letters

would lead him to a lot of houses

you know you got a tip on this

this one particular place

but we were out searching for it

you could smell

you could smell Moonshine in the air

it was thick in the air

and the closer we got to this place

the thicker the smell got

somebody's making some shine around here

I said they certainly are

I said we better be careful too

so we got up on the place

where they were actually making the stuff

and it was one of the places that he wanted to stop at

and he zooms now this car

this this that's 64 Ford Galaxy

he had looked like

look like the cop cars of the digging

the cops were driving galaxies

and he's got 102 inch radio whip antenna on this thing

he's got magnetic flashlights on the dash

you know the time

he couldn't look any more like a revenue or a cop car

and he just zooms right down into the

into the front yard of this place

and you could see the smoke

you could smell the whiskey

and now comes

all these guys with double barrel shotguns and

you know and I just

I just sunk down on the seat

I said this is it we're dead

he gets out his bedroom slippers and his and his pipe

slams the door hi

I'm Joe Buzzard

and I'm thinking this guy has lost his mind

these people are gonna kill us

they don't know who we are

and the guy says who did you say you were

I'm Joe Buzzard I run that

I got a show on WLDF West Virginia over here

and the guy turns around says hey

Ma get out here in the yard quick

Joe Buzzard's in our yard

he says tell your friend

come on out from cringing in there too

he says y'all come on in the house hahaha

but I really did thought

I thought we bought it that time

but fearless Joe you know

thank god we were near Fisher

thank god these people had heard the radio

well my mom always had a theory

because

there was a couple record collectors that were from

up North New York and places

and they had like the accent like that

you could tell they were from the north

and um

my dad always sounded like he could be from

the next county over I mean

he always just seemed like he was very southern and

you know very laid back

and he would go to these houses

and a lot of the times

I don't think the people even knew where he was from

I was in the National Guard

and those days we used to take her on drill nights

we used to pick guitars

everybody played something

and today it's nothing

it's just these stupid things plugged in your ear

we went in there we play

and these guys said hey man

I wish we could get a record of that

I said yeah

she's how many of you would want a record

oh we want a record

so I picked up a record cutter

I got it off a preacher and

so we made a tape and we cut from the tape to the disc

and I cut I don't know 50

60 of them and they bought them

so then I said well hey

if they want that I'm

I'm gonna start looking around for other things

you know and I found friend of mine

we made a little guitar picking thing together

and a lot of people wanted that

and then some people came in

made a record

they must have had 75 relatives that wanted a copy

well the fun was when it was on that

when you cut it you can see the grooves appear

but I love making records

and then I met that's when I met Lucky Chapman

that's when they came out with Duffy

Lucky Chapman played the guitar

Duffy played mandolin

and I can't remember the banjo player

I'm the cameraman the curve

hard ball on the base and Bill Popenberg on the fiddle

and we really they just came out to play

we didn't think about making reckon

they start playing say

hey man

I'm getting might get out and hanging over the ceiling

over the pipe let it hang down

is that that diamond ribbon Mike

you know it's both open on both sides

so come some couple got on one side

couple got on the other

and we recorded

and Duffy uh

played that tune bluegrass which he wrote

of course then Faggy came by in 59

made his first records

I I had a little sneaky suspicion back in

back in my mind that they were gonna be collectors

items on these days especially the face

I just something just told me they were gonna be right

I wish I kept some of them well

I don't know just cause he was so weird

you know

so different

um he was something

you know man

like that way out man hahaha

you see

he was a nice guy he

he when he came here

he was only about 17 I guess he wouldn't more

much more older than that

when he made his first stuff

it was in November 1959 at 4 o'clock in the morning

that's when he got wound up

got six titles that night

and they sold for when he came back and 60

cut a bunch more and 61 a bunch more and 62

that was the last

six titles remain and then he disappeared

we sat out on the front porch of this old place

and we played music till 1 o'clock in the morning

Oscar was there I was there

Ted was there and it was beautiful

all that music floated across that meadowland

that was fun we went back and did that a lot

just played music

they were the good days they had a lot of fun

and of course they came up to the house

you know and we made some records

they were here all the time doing all kinds

of stuff and then people started coming by you know

and and playing I listen to him you know

some I record

just all kind of

people showed up and just went on like that

a lot of fun

get him down and make a record um

usually for payment they got a record

no budget cut nobody signed any contracts

nobody got anything cause I was

I was just breaking even

I wouldn't make no money it's fun

check that out

I don't think there's any other time

in the history of the world

that more traditional music

throughout the whole world was recorded

would be between 26 and 31 or 32

that was a go on time 1924 1925

1926 1927

you've got these snapshots of

this is string band music in North Georgia

this is banjo music in Texas

this is fiddle and guitar music in Mississippi

you got all these snapshots of traditions

which at that stage are highly distinctive

in some cases terribly localized

you get forms idioms

which exist in precisely that form

in maybe one or two counties

sometimes maybe in one town

it really is like a time capsule

it's just the most amazing document those records

you know it's just

it's an era before everyone had heard everything else

you know

before it became something that was more mass you know

um and and more homogenized

so

I get a lot of creative

musical ideas from listening to Old 70 Eights

because people just played things really quirky

that's what made the music so great

was because people did not hear each other

and they had their own styles

and it's unbelievable

how many different styles of music on these 70 eights

they weren't aiming for a national audience

they were just playing their local dances or

you know singing the local

songs that were traditional to their area

especially back then the music was done

just because the performers wanted to do it

it's not it wasn't to make a million dollars

and it wasn't to become famous

it was because of a love that they had for it

and you know

this couple minutes is frozen in time

and it's there forever and I just think that's so cool

I think that's fascinating that he got them

because chances are

if he hadn't taken them out of those houses

they would be gone

does he really appreciate it

how could you not think that

he does

how could you not think it

what would make you question that

have you ever met that funny reefer man

have you ever met that

if he trades you dimes for nickels

and calls watermelons pickles