Original subtitles

In 1920s and 30s, at that particular period of time, there was more

traditional music preserved on commercial phonograph records than 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.

I heard very little of what actually was recorded due to the fact they were

playing them on crude acoustical wind-up controllers.

What a whale of a record.

Welcome to Maryland.

I first met Joe two years ago when 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 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. because that's how excited he was to get a call, and this was 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 such that it's almost been whittled 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.

Well, I've been collecting records door to door for about 47 or 48 years, and

this is a good example right behind me at some of the houses.

where you'd find your good records.

And I went to a place one time, it was about December, I guess, and there was a

house, a beautiful-looking house like this, across the creek.

The creek was about 15 feet wide, no bridge, no foot log.

And what was I going to do? There was no road across, so I just took off my shoes

and socks, rolled my pants up, and waded the creek. My legs were numb from my

knees down.

But I went up to the door, and I guess if they saw me, they thought I was

crazy. But I knocked on the door and talked to them, and they had records.

And I bought some records, and I waded back across the creek.

So that's what I go for, for records. I wade through a creek of ice.

He was 16 years old when he started really going to the South to look for

records, which was really unheard of. His parents didn't like it at all.

And he's done it his whole life.

And, I mean, what he's been able to accomplish and put together.

When you look at the records, it's amazing.

I went all over the country to get these things.

The best time was the 1950s, because it didn't matter what you were looking for

in the 1950s, it was considered junk.

I mean, that's when anybody who's collected anything got it in the 1950s.

A lot of people were getting TV sets then, and they'd say, yeah, well, you

just take them, we don't play them anymore. A lot of them had the old Vic

Troll in the back room, you know, and you just pick out what you want and give

them a couple bucks and out the door.

And I'd go door to door, house to house.

And it wasn't nothing to go out and one weekend come back with 400 or 500

records.

Here's Frederick.

When I first started going out, I'd venture out so far, so many days, cover

all the many roads that I could cover.

And then after a while, I was going way down here.

I'd have to leave early in the morning.

But just about any place you stick your finger, if you hunted it out long

enough, they're all good areas.

Interesting people, interesting country, beautiful country down here, mountains,

50s and early, middle 60s is where the majority of records, everybody had them.

And you could just go in one area and just hunt all day long.

Sometimes you'd get in areas, you'd find just one or two labels.

They're only distributed around there. And then you get in another area and you

find another label. Then you get in an area where all the labels were

distributed.

I can remember houses we went to and we hunted till it was absolute dark.

Many a time.

Back in this area, hardly any roads even on the map, but there was roads back in

there just isolated.

Just people lived back so far back you couldn't believe.

It was a lot of roads, and it took a lot of time, and that's where the main part

of my records came from, out of Virginia, West Virginia.

This area down in here is very flat, and a lot of records in there if you hunted.

I found an old collared gentleman someplace down in here. He stole

paramount records out of his house, and he had no electricity in the house, so

we were looking at records with colo lamps.

And at that time, there was a hurricane coming up the coast. It was just

scraping, and the rain was pounding on the tin roof of this house.

You talk about an atmosphere.

There was roaring rain hitting the roof.

These cool old lamps, and we were sitting there looking at Paramount

records.

God, I was in heaven.

Charlie Patton, I don't know. He was just so far out and so incredible that

there's not a whole lot you can say about him. He recorded very late for

Paramount.

This happens to be a exceptionally beautiful copy.

This is Patton about 29 or late 28.

A lot of people have a hard time understanding his words. I have some,

even though I've listened to him for years, but that's what makes it even

nice.

This guy just drives me nuts.

Guys, it's Bill Mora.

He'd sit there and he'd go... What

a

record. What an artist.

When I was a little girl, I used to play it in his record room when I was only

about three years old. So they were always a part of my life.

He used to make little record shows with me and did recordings. I think my first

word was...

recorded on one of his tapes in his room.

So they've always been there.

Because my mother, she loved bluegrass, country music and bluegrass. That was

her thing.

And rock and roll wasn't really allowed in that house. It was either his stuff

or the stuff my mom listened to.

And that's pretty much all I ever grew up listening to. I guess when I got to

be a teenager, I rebelled. And what did I bring in?

I think I brought in a John Lennon record, and it went sailing across the

backyard like a frisbee.

I didn't care what people thought of me. I liked what I liked, and I told them

that. I didn't mess around.

I bought records back then. I bought Bluegrass records. I used to go to the

Shipley's.

Every so weeks, I bought Don Reed and Red Smalley's. I bought Hank Williams

Sr. I bought every one of his that came out.

But that was about it. I didn't bother with rock and roll.

To me, it was childish, four-year-old stuff for four-year-old kindergarten

kids. I couldn't believe it, you know, somebody 16 years old like I was would

even listen to that stupid stuff.

But they did.

Well, when I was about 8 or 9 years old, I used to go down in the east part of

town where the blacks lived.

They had a whole section down there, and they had old houses, and there was

nothing to walk up the street and hear them playing mandolins and guitar and

fiddles and stuff, you know. Right down the street, it was beautiful, and there

was one old guy that played a bottleneck guitar, and he sat on this little house

on the side, an alley, and they used to stand across the street and just...

Just watch him. I just had a... He was just unbelievable.

That's where, you know, first turns, that kind of stuff.

But in those days, everybody played music. The country was busted.

Imagine what it was like in the 20s. There was even more.

There was a really creative regionalism going on that was lost at some point.

Joe talks about family members playing together.

You were a musician when you were three years old until you grew up.

And I think that comes through in the records.

It's just tight, tight bands.

You don't hear any miscues that much. They had three minutes of immortality.

You got those three minutes when they're recording that stuff live to get it all

down. And you really hear that. You hear, like, not a wasted note.

Joe has a good musician's ear, and I think here's a guy who's self-taught,

didn't go to college, and I think what he brings to it is a real musician's

sense of what's going on in the music.

Another really fine example of fiddle and guitar would probably be

the Lewis Brothers, which were recorded at El Paso, Texas.

Little town right on the Mexican border.

1929, Ralph Peer went down there with a recording machine and some engineers.

They wanted Western cowboy singers.

And they got real cowboy singers. I mean, cowboys that actually worked on a

ranch punching cattle.

But it's just a unique thing. It's called Bull at the Wagon.

And they'll fiddle a little bit, and you'll hear them imitate the bull

ballering. You know, it's neat.

Beautiful tune. So much imagination in this little tune, too.

Beautiful tune.

There's the bull.

Beautiful, Bill.

All music changed between 31 and 33.

The country music, it wasn't nothing like it was two or three years earlier,

and same with the blues.

And, of course, jazz was gone. There is no such thing as jazz. I don't care what

they call it nowadays.

It's not jazz.

It's another form of music altogether.

And this is what you call real good, hot, white jazz.

These guys cooked.

And that's Billy Banks and his orchestra.

Probably about 1933, just about almost down to the end of jazz.

But these guys, this is going to be sold for a quarter. Boy, what a quarter worth

you got for this.

Like Joe says all the time, when you put the record on, you know who it is by

their sound. It was that individual. I think that was going to be lost anyway,

whether or not the Depression or the war did it.

He basically blames the Depression.

This is Hard Time Blues.

It's an extremely rare record.

It's just about hard times.

Depression. This was shortly after Depression, 35.

Thank you.

I got guitar.

Now it's hard times, baby.

Hard times everywhere I go.

Hard times, baby, baby.

Hard times ever were gone.

Now these people keep trying about hard times.

They come in more and more.

Now if I was a bluebird, mama, had my trunk packed on my back.

Hey!

If I was a bluebird and my trunk packed on my back,

I would fly away from this town, mama, and I swear

I would never come back.

What a great artist.

Oh, gee.

Hey, Joe?

Want to cut it?

Yeah, that's okay.

Yeah!

Hello?

Who we got coming?

Hey, Joe, how's it going? Oh, buddy, he's a fellow from Australia. There's

Ed, and you all introduced us to Paul Jeremiah.

Oh, hey. Yeah, he's a fellow who plays the blues.

And you're on camera right now, I believe. Oh, I am, I am.

You never know what's going to happen when you walk in this place.

Yeah.

This is the original recording of the song, The Writing Paper Blues, first

recorded by Blind Willie McTell, probably about 1928.

Mama, don't you want to go?

May take me a five round, may take one or two more.

Big 80 left Savannah, the morning did not stop.

Y'all just saw that color fireman when he got them boiling hot. You can reach

over in the corner, mama, and hand me my traveling shoes.

You know about that, I got them Statesboro blues.

Sister tell your brother, brother tell your auntie, auntie tell my uncle, uncle

tell my cousin, cousin tell my friend. Going up the country, mama, don't you

want to go?

Might take a friend of mine, may take one or two more.

Big 80 left Savannah, running didn't stop me, all the soda finally get that

boy on his high. Reached over the corner to hand me my traveling shoes.

Didn't know about that, I got them stays for a blue.

Great! Little Willie McTale stuff there.

Great. Blind Willie McTale. Well, all right, man.

Statesboro Blues. Glad to play. That's where he went to blind school, wasn't

it? Macon was where he went to blind school. He was from Statesboro. Well, I

just played down there. They have a Blind Willie McTale Blues Festival.

How'd it go? It was good. They had a nice turnout.

Anyway, we put flowers at Willie McTale's grave, and I met some people

who remembered hearing him play on the streets down there. Some older people

who were fairly young back then. Thank God they made records.

You realize all this would be gone?

Very few copies. It was a vibe. That's the thing.

In decent condition from what they were played on.

It's great that you've got the music that we can listen to.

It's like going to a museum when you stop at Joe's.

Another thing about Joe now, he's an independent in that sense. I think even

compared to the other collectors, he doesn't believe in the Library of

Congress or any of these places. He's done it on his own, and it's his.

He figures that it's more accessible there, I think, than it would be.

as he describes it, you know, boxed up in the basement of some library.

I mean, the way he keeps the collection, in a way it's meticulous, but it's

completely like a public library once you're down there. I mean, you can't

touch the records, but they're on and the music's playing and it's pretty

accessible. I've only, I guess, in the last couple years really realized how

much of American history there is in there that isn't really being taught

because it's on his records and nowhere else.

Clarence Ashley, this is a fellow that...

made the famous song, A Cuckoo Bird, which led to his rediscovery in the

1960s. And I went down to his place, Mountain City, Tennessee, July the 12th,

1966.

The day after my birthday, by the way, and recorded Mr.

Ashley in his home.

And he played beautiful old-time banjo. He recorded for Columbia Records.

I recorded this old tune about sometime in the 20s for the...

Well, it sold along about an average seller till along in the

30s when the modern, we'd call it hillbilly music or what have you, it all

got modernized and I thought I was out of the picture forever.

Well, along about 60, the folk people that was interested in the real

old down-to-earth folk music.

They was quite enthused about me being still alive and singing and picking a

little. So from there they taken me to New York and I re-recorded it. So

this old tune has had two lives and it's living its second life now.

So incredible.

She's a pretty bird. She wanders.

As she flies, she laughs.

There's two.

Laugh for three.

She'll laugh.

I pray.

Hear me.

I pray for her.

Hear me.

He was about almost as good as he was back in the 20s.

Amazing man.

Lots of people, they like the blues now better than they did a long

time ago.

Son House made, I think, three records for Paramount. There was, I believe, a

fourth record, which has never turned up, even to this very day.

He lived up into the 1960s and has lived long enough to have films made of his

performances.

Your love is dead.

He got out of that moment.

And I heard him ring it red.

He said, hurry, hurry.

Because the gal you love is dead.

Keep dialing my wife.

Looks like an order.

An order.

An order.

Worth a CD.

What you doing, John John?

Want to chase an apple?

Want to get an apple? Come on.

Here.

Give me that apple.

I think you told me the first thing you collected before records.

You remember that? You told me about that?

What, bird's nest?

Yeah, me and my cousin. We were always looking for bird's nests. And that's the

time we hunted that, saw that hummingbird.

They migrate to South America in the wintertime. They fly across the Gulf of

Mexico in one day. If they get a tailwind, they'll fly near 100 miles an

hour. If they get a headwind, they might die.

But once you started on the records, I guess that was it. I was collecting

records then. That's why I had a radio station then. But that was a little

thing we did in the spare time.

In about 1952 or 1953, I built a radio station.

And we had a radio station in this house, and that was more fun than

anything I ever had. And we covered several miles.

We had everybody and anybody, and we played hillbilly music, had a DJ show,

and we sold time, spots for a dollar. And I taught my cousin how to operate

the thing.

He came up, and he wanted to be a DJ.

So I taught him how to be a DJ.

And then one day I came home and the FCC was there.

My dad was waiting on me and said, well, you've done it now.

I said, what do you mean? He said, what do you mean?

He said, there's two FCC men back here. I said, what?

The FCC is here.

I said, oh, come on.

Go back. There's two of them back there. And there was two guys sitting there

probably in their 60s.

FCC.

Yeah.

You operate, you're the one operating this station? I said, yeah.

He said, well, he says, you know what you're doing is a little illegal. Oh, I

didn't know that. He said, we've been monitoring you for six months.

He said, I like the music you play.

That's where we got it. I said, oh, yeah? He said, I like Jimmy Rogers and

also like Hank Williams and Hank Snow. He said, well, you kids are, it's

beautiful what you're doing.

He said, it's great.

He said, it's a shame you can't get a license.

And then I do a show on WSIG in Mount Jackson, Virginia, and I was there a

couple years, and I went over to WELD in Fisher.

Coming up next, we have Country Classics with Mr. Joe Buzzard. You are listening

to 1450 AM WTHU, Fairmont, Emmitsburg, and Frederick. The time now is 1030, and

time for Country Classics with Mr. Joe Buzzard. Joe, take it away. Okay, I'm

right here.

Running the theme song right now.

Howdy, howdy, a great big sad morning out there to you, good friends,

neighbors, and welcome to the Country Music Classics, your radio friend. One

nice thing about taping your shows, you can ride around and listen to them.

You know, you're not stuck in a radio station.

You've got Pools Hardware. If you need hardware supplies, go see Pools.

Pools has a full line of hardware supplies.

They're open on Sunday. And they're located right on Main Street in

Sevillisville. Open on Sunday.

I would be great to say that when I started on WSIG in Mount Jackson, I was

the first one to come along and play records by Uncle Dave Macon and Carter

Fenton and stuff like that on the radio.

Because that was in 1955.

Probably the greatest showman that ever walked on the stage at a Grand Ole Opry.

Uncle Dave Macon. He was a showman. He had the best repertoire of songs that

anybody would ever live.

This is a 1926 recording.

One of my favorites, Whoop Em Up Cindy.

I play this on the radio all the time. This is too much.

Yes, darling, if you ain't right, get right.

Can't charm me. Let's go now.

What a performance.

Oh, gee.

Oh, I should have said they have an Uncle Dave making day.

Every year now, they start an Uncle Dave making day.

They have festivals all through the town, you know, and people come play the

banjos. It's wonderful that they're coming back and remembering these

people. You know, they're finally realizing the great musical treasure

that this country had.

And it was forgotten and, you know, discarded for so long, starting to come

back. So let's hope that the music itself comes back on stage, you know,

but at least it's a start.

I think of him as part of this revival now that's going on with the old-time

music. Like Spotswood and some of these other guys that have radio shows,

they're almost like spokespeople or evangelists. You're on one side or

you're on the other. There's no in-between.

And you either think this music is the greatest American product of this

century, which a lot of people think, or you think it sounds like scratchy old

records. For him, it's not a hobby, and it never has been. It's literally his

life. And a lot of collectors just do it on the side.

He does it full-time, and he's been doing it for probably 40 years.

And down here is our favorite hangout, my favorite half, Barbara Pritchard. You

can see the old candy cane sticking up down here.

Boy, look at the cars in there.

They're busy today.

Good

morning.

This is the place where I live at all the time.

Barber fridge.

I've been over here for a long time. It's since my weight passed away.

I need a coffee this morning.

I need something to wake me up.

And your usual?

Yeah, to cook here.

Yes. Okay, your usual?

Two egg scramble.

Yep. With crispy bacon, OJ.

I'm hungry this morning, too.

So how long has Joe been coming in for breakfast here? A long time?

Oh, for quite a few years. Yeah.

And he wasn't like that when he started. He got spoiled.

Oh, did he? Yeah.

If we squeeze his orange juice ahead of time, he won't drink it. We have to

squeeze it right away when he comes.

They spoil me.

Yeah. The eggs have got to be just right. They're nice. They're like second

home. The bacon has to be just right. The eggs have to be just right.

And the juice also.

And the coffee.

They take good care of me. Come over here sometimes, three times a day.

You know, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Well, I love to come over here and get the best coffee.

Isn't it perfect?

3.30, the perfect post.

Our great local newspaper.

They're coming.

They're coming. So, you reckon you'll get on the front?

I might make the front.

Oh, they've done a story on me every 10 years or the last 40 years. Right.

At the time, you know, it's been like, it's been about 12 years, so it's due

again. Yeah. You're right about.

Tell me about your impressions. I know we talked a little bit about this

yesterday, your impressions of music today.

There is no music today.

Tell me a little bit more about that. There is no music.

When they brought the rock stuff in, rock's a cancer of music around

everything. They ate into every kind of music in the world. I mean, you can even

go to foreign countries now.

You know, you go to Jamaica or some islands, you used to hear beautiful

Jamaican music. Now it's bang, bang, bang, bang.

It's a cancer of music. It's killed everything.

That's just the way society is. It's gone.

So what's your favorite out of all your records?

I guess Jimmy Rogers is my favorite singer. Okay. He had the greatest voice

of any person who ever lived.

I think the first time I ever heard a Jimmy Rogers record was a woman here in

town gave me a box of records. There were two of them in there.

That was the first time I actually had a 780. I mean, I went nuts. But there was

a lot of other stuff.

Do you remember about how old you were when you got your first records?

Probably 12 or 13.

Okay. I wouldn't play any attention to what was going on then. I heard

something else.

I didn't care about what was going on in music then.

Rock and roll didn't bother me a bit. I was after something else.

Something that moved me more than anything I ever heard.

This may not move you, but I love it.

Now, were you born in Frederick? Born and raised?

And you're married and you have children?

My wife, she passed away. I have a daughter. She has three granddaughters.

Wow. My wife likes music. She likes bluegrass and stuff, too.

Did you two meet in a music record-related way?

Almost. Okay.

I met her through her daddy over at radio, CB.

Okay. And his daddy says, you want to come down and see my daughter? She's got

all kinds of records. And I went down, and she did. And we got more and more

and more and more. We went together about a year or so, and then his mommy

made Delete.

Okay. And she's got thousands of LPs upstairs and records.

The whole house is full of records.

Have you ever heard of Robert Johnson?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

legendary robert here's original robert johnson vocalion crossroad blues in new

condition what year is that 1936 okay san antonio texas blue bonnet hotel it's

where they cut they'll cut the hotel room right now he's the holy grail of

blues the rock and roll musicians worship johnson and he'll pay anything

for his records and they got the money to pay wow it's beautiful

There was a movie made about that.

It was called Crossroads. It was terrible. The only thing in the whole

movie that made it good was the first minute and a half where it recreated

Robert Johnson walking down the hall of the Blue Bonnet Hotel.

The last of the really great blues singers. The real great ones were in the

20s. The Depression changed all that. But after the Depression, he had to be

the last of the really great. The guy was unbelievable.

What are you doing?

You're listening to a brand new mint coffee of the original 78. Yeah, that's

amazing.

You're kidding.

Everybody pass me by.

This guy is so unreal.

When he was out there doing that stuff, a lot of people probably thought he was

nuts back then. And now a lot of these records are worth not only a lot of

money, but what comes through is when people like Eric Clapton said, that

record changed my life with Robert Johnson or this and that. Those records,

some of them wouldn't have survived if Joe and these guys hadn't been out going

to a poor neighborhood and basically canvassing for stuff that was looked at

as trash.

I'll tell you the story about the rarest blues record I found. And what happened,

I was down below Tazewall, Virginia, which is below Bluefield, Virginia,

which was a good area for records because people had money during the

Depression. They worked in the coal mines and on the railroad. So blacks and

whites had money to spend on records.

And I was in this little town, and I stopped and asked a guy on the street,

showed him an old record, and said, you know anybody around here that's got any

old records like that?

And he said, yeah, go out to the old flea market, which was an old driving

movie theater. So there's an old fellow coming up the road.

And I asked him where it was. And he said, it's back up here about a mile.

So I said, are you going up there? And he said, yeah. I said, well, get in.

I'll take you up. So I had the tape player going in the car and had some old

string band music on. And he said, oh, boy, that's good music. I said, yeah,

that's all old records. I'm looking for old records.

Oh, I've got a gang in back at the house. I said, can I look at them?

Sure. So we went back to his house.

And we went in. And we went in the side room.

I pulled this big box of records out from under the bed, and it had about 15

inches of bed dust. It was like snow piled on top.

It went like this. It was flying all over the place.

So anyway, we got down to the records, and I was going through and going

through the average country stuff, and all of a sudden, I spotted a black

patty, which are probably the rarest records in this country.

were named after a black singer by the name of Black Patty. She was very

popular around 1900 with the black audience.

The lifespan of that record was seven months in 1927 and discontinued.

This happens to be the very best one musically, and this is the only existing

copy there is known in the world.

Long Cleve Reed and Papa Harvey Hall, the hometown boys.

And I was just in the right place at the right time.

And I found it. And it's a fantastic performance.

I'll give a listen one time.

Beautiful.

And that is one record that when I leave this world, I think I'm going to have

that laying on top of me in my coffin.

And then it'll be coming around 20 years later, digging it up to get the record.

Tuck it in.

Nobody look where I put it.

Don't buzz it. The music teens listen to today isn't worth a lick.

The real deal, Mr. Buzzard, is early country jazz and bluegrass from the

1920s and 1930s and the 1940s. Helen, what do you think?

Of Joe? Joe on the front page.

What do you think of it?

This is quite a collection of records. Yeah. I've never seen this.

That's just the small part, you know. Oh, he has more?

25,000.

Do you really? I told you I did. I wasn't fooling you.

Well, I thought you'd know.

Yeah. Maybe that's it.

Yeah. I have a... I don't know. I thought it was kind of like a taste.

Yeah. I like classical music, but I never heard that music. Classical music?

What's wrong with that?

Hello?

Yeah?

Yeah?

Yeah, that was me in the paper.

Mm-hmm.

You got records?

What labels do you have? Can you remember any of them?

Mm-hmm.

Victor, Columbia.

Are they red-labeled Columbias or black-labeled?

You don't know.

Where are you at there?

I'll get around there and see you.

All right, well, listen, I appreciate you calling me. I'll take a look at

them. All right?

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Well, we're on our way to look at some records.

Could be some good stuff, and it could be a war shout.

But it sounds...

Pretty good.

Best bone tip I've had so far. This is a colored fellow.

I think he's 70, 70s.

Daddy played a guitar years ago.

He's got a bass before records.

So who knows?

And we're on our way.

We live alone.

Long, long time to get old We live a long, long time to get old So there

ain't no need to cry Poor old grandpa's got to die We live a long, long time to

get old

When

you went to high school You used to jump and hop Now each time you move around

You start to crack and pop You talk about the good old days when you were in

your prime.

How you earned all that money, but you didn't save a dime.

We live a long, long time to get old.

We live a long, long time to get old.

So there ain't no need to cry. Poor old grandpa's got to die. We live a long,

long time to get old.

Now, 124.

You need to add the sign the other way. Fine, we got to go back a ways.

Let me check, make sure.

427.

Should be right along here.

I ain't going to go any further than this. It has to be one of these.

Yes, this is what happens on record trips. You get lost.

You can't find anything.

Naturally, they wouldn't have a road sign down here on the side of coming

down.

George, I'm doing all right, buddy.

These guys will be taking movies here.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah. You don't mind if I smoke, do you?

You sure?

You sure? I don't do it. You don't smoke. I'm going to sneak your house up

now. All right. Come on down.

Oh,

my God.

Lord have mercy.

Yes. All right. All of this is.

I got a fellow that might be interested in some of the old peas. Oh, yeah. Well,

I don't even want to wrestle with you. I said, man, these ain't no old peas.

This is what we're talking about. All that is. That hard stuff. Well, they're

not very old, though. They're only in their 40s, 50s.

Yeah? Yeah. Well, that's all I'm going back to. Oh, I see.

Man, that's old.

But I kept all that junk anyway. I just kept them, see.

And I said, well, I'll look through. How long you been collecting yours?

I don't think we're at 47 years.

I can't get down on one leg anymore. I can't get up. Well, you didn't know.

I know. Don't tell me about it.

It's an Edison record.

Where the hell did they come from?

I heard a Decker went out with it. I did have an old, I had an old wound-up

player. That's the kind of records I'm looking for that was on that.

Yeah, but, well, you played these on with the needle.

I'm looking for the ones that came out back then.

Yeah, well, it's either my player. When I left, I don't know what happened to my

player. When I got back home, Needles was here, but the Reds was gone. You

look for that by Blackburn.

Lose. Lose?

Real stuff.

Charlie Patton, Skip James, Sunhouse, Lionel Jefferson.

Who in the world? Lionel Blake. That's before I came here. Yeah,

we 70 years old. That was before us, huh? Yeah, that's what I'm looking for.

That's where the stuff was. That's where the music was. They ain't got nothing

now.

Well, I may have a tape out here in the car.

Come on out here and I'll play you some real stuff.

Yeah, listen to it, too. I know when I got on tape out here.

Hey, listen, I appreciate you calling me and letting me look.

It's not quite old enough.

Who put it on tape for you? I mean, hold on.

Who put it on that? I did. I saw them. Oh, do you? I got all kinds of tapes.

Oh. This tape's an Aaron Heffern's $8.

Oh, man, that's a good way back there. That's 1925.

That's back in 510 Louis Armstrong. This is before they had them electrical

records, you know.

Brother played guitar.

Oh, yeah.

Dangerous. I want a little juke heart.

Yes. His mother used to have one of them little juice hearts where he used to

play it.

His brother could play that stuff, man.

My daddy, he played guitar, too.

You don't believe I'm going, you can count the days I'm gone.

If you don't believe I'm going, you can count the days I'm gone.

It's a shame that music's been lost.

Well, there's stuff these kids, they play it now.

No.

Can't teach them nothing. They don't know nothing.

Now they got the boot-de-boot and bang

-de-bang stuff.

He got them.

Yeah, didn't they?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

Well, that's good. That's fine enough. We could have the house and play records

two or three years. I'm hanging on the ceiling.

It takes me three years to wind down. Oh, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Oh, no. At least you're doing something constructive.

I just go all out. Well, you guys take care, man. Nice meeting you. Same here.

I'll send this fella out. Okay, Joe. All right, we'll see you now. Okay, Joe.

Take care.

Well, one of those things. He didn't have, he had 78s, but they weren't old

enough.

What he had wasn't much any good.

Nothing new.

But it was worth a look.

They were nice balls.

Had a good time. Played a little music with them, you know, on the tape player.

So maybe there'll be better records tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe I'll get

another phone call.

That's the way it goes. I'm used to it.

Nothing new.

You can't see a house in 25 miles around.

I can't see nobody going towards my old hometown.

That's, I think, the key, and I guess that's why these guys keep collecting

records. There's something they haven't heard.

There's another record that they've got to listen to.

You'd think at their ages now, most of them are 50, 60, even older.

They've just sort of gotten over this obsession.

Oh,

no. What happened?

That just breaks my heart.

Thank God I have a copy of it. That's Perry Wesselin. He lives in Washington,

D.C.

Still living, still playing.

He made that in Washington, D.C. in 1950.

The only record he made is absolutely a masterpiece.

There's always another record they're going to find.

And, you know, it's probably not going to be at someone's house anymore. It

could be in an antique store or who knows where, but I guess they've got to

itch and they've got to scratch it, and they're probably never going to get over

that.

Don't believe it?

Don't believe it.

Don't believe it.

When we were over here for the public sale, which was held in this house

across the street, and you fellows didn't want to wait around for them to

bring the records out, so you went down to see Eddie Dean.

So I patiently waited out two hours to bring the box of records down, and when

I went through the box of records, I found one of the best blues records I've

seen in ten years.

Get fiddle, Jim, on Victor.

The only E-plus copy known to exist in the United States. There are a couple

others in really bad shape. That's when I had two cardiac arrestes.

And I sit over there in the yard four and a half hours waiting for the

auctioneer to come around.

Got the whole box for five bucks.

world think there would be a great blues record like this in a little town of

marsville in a house like that it just goes to show you they're still out there

Thank you. I'll be

back

and I'll play records on both sides.