[78-L] My Visit with Brian Rust

[Cary Ginell]

Nice memories, Douglas. So what did you end up doing for a living? I hate a cliffhanger.

Cary Ginell

> From: dme3 at cornell.edu
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2011 21:40:19 -0500
> Subject: [78-L] My Visit with Brian Rust
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I've been a lurker for years, but with the news of Brian Rust's passing, I felt compelled to share the story of my visit to Brian back in 1982.
> 
> Like so many of us, I had become familiar with his discographies as I began getting interested in 78's.  Back in high school in the 70's, I was constantly taking the American Dance Band Discography out of the library and wondered who this Rust fellow was. As the years went by, I learned that he was a Victor enthusiast, as I was.  Fast forward to the recession year of '82 when I was graduating from college with no idea of what I was going to do for a living and (like Benjamin Braddock) concerned about my future.  It so happened that at the time my dad was on sabbatical in England about an hour west of London.  As a graduation present my parents invited me over to England for a month.  I figured, why not...I don't have anything to do.  And then an idea came to me...why not write to Brian Rust and see if I could visit him while I'm over there?
> 
> So once I arrived, I sent off a letter and shortly afterwards, my parents and I went off on a trip to Scotland (where we had been for six months way back in 1968 during my dad's first sabbatical).  When we returned, the afternoon mail arrived and my heart jumped...there was a little brown envelope from Hatch End, Pinner!  I opened it and saw the familiar typescript and signature that we know from the discographies.  Brian invited me to come over for an afternoon any day in the second week of July.  I nervously "rang him up", as they say, and we set the date.
> 
> Now I had something to be excited about in the midst of a summer of gloom.  July 6 came and we motored to London and found Hatch End...a pleasant suburb with a park nearby.  I wish I could recall more about his house, but it was a duplex and I remember going up a flight of stairs to his record room and meeting him there.  I had only seen an outdated picture of him on a dust jacket, but I found that he was tall, bald on top, graying, and had rather tired-looking eyes (which seemed completely appropriate for someone who had spent decades poring through record ledgers!).  A thoroughly nice guy, and very patient with a young collector who was quite shy and "green."  It was three hours of bliss listening to records and discussing dance bands, recording technology, and collecting.  I was just beginning to appreciate jazz as well as dance bands, and he turned me on to some of his Victor favorites, such as the Dixieland Jug Blowers.  I would have stayed longer, but my parents wanted 
>  to get home and Brian needed to kick me out because he had another engagement.  He kindly gave me a Boswell Sisters LP that had just been released by Living Era.  (I'm sure he received promo copies of reissue LP's quite frequently...)
> 
> After sending him a thank-you letter (to which he courteously responded), I had intended to correspond with him occasionally, but never got around to it and the years (and decades) went by.  When I got the news of his death today, I was especially saddened as I thought back to that July day in 1982, which cheered me up at a depressing time in my life and certainly broadened my interests in record collecting.
> 
> Doug Elliot
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