[78-L] why collect?

[Bill McClung]

I collect 78s because of the rock group Cream.

I was born in 1950 and was raised on my father's Billy Vaughn LPs.  He tried to convert me to 101 Strings but it didn't take, thank you.  

And his rule in the car was that whoever was driving got to control the push buttons which just meant more John Gary, John Davidson, and Montovani.

Buying my own records meant my own format (45s), my own record player (cheap, small, and portable), and my own independence.  But the music I was hearing on my own radio station (KFJZ Fort Worth TX) was all top 40.  I thought I was free but the chains were just padded.

High school in the mid-sixties in small town Texas was for me white jeans, white socks, penny loafers, all yes sir and yes m'am, and the Southern Baptist Church.  And the Beatles, the Supremes, Herman's Hermits, and Chad & Jeremy.

Going to the University of Texas at Austin set me free.  I had an apartment across the street from a record store and I got my education buying used LPs, devouring the liner notes as much as the music, and going wherever the music took me.  There was jazz and blues and gospel and so much more I hadn't known.  When I would go home I would take my discoveries to share with my Dad but he really wasn't interested.  How could he have never even heard of Bessie Smith?  Or Art Tatum? Or Charlie Parker?  Or Little Walter?  Or(the examples are too plentiful and painful)?

Cream's version of "Sitting on Top of the World" led me to Bob Will's version on MGM and then to his version on Vocalion.   And that led to a three volume LP set of Western Swing from Old Timey/Arhoolie and that led me to spend $5 for that box of 78s in the back of an antique store in Cleburne that had some Bessie Smiths and the Be Bop Boys and a Milton Brown and an Amos Milburn and a Cats & the Fiddle and that, my friends, is THE moment.

I still buy the occasional LP and the occassional 45 but 78s are the format I love.   I buy 78s in bulk when I can and when it makes sense but I only keep what I will play.  It's all about the music and the joy of learning and discovery.  It's still an act of independence and still the thrill of discovery.   But in the end it's all about the music.  For me it's mostly postwar but that's what I like.

I think a 78 is a snapshot.   It's that group of musicians at that moment on that day.   What I collect is the joy, the energy, the mistakes, the humanity of that recorded moment.  And it makes my life that much richer.

Nothing wrong with Billy Vaughn or Montovani.  Each of us has our own comforts.  I just hope I never get too comfortable.



Bill McClung
bmcclung at ix.netcom.com
EarthLink Revolves Around You.