Joe Bussard. No, you’ve probably never heard of him (unless you read the same books I do): he was an “obsessive collector” of 78 RPM records.
From his home near the Blue Ridge Mountains, Mr. Bussard (pronounced boo-SARD) drove the country roads of the South seeking 78s that had been languishing in people’s homes. He was selective about what he brought back to his basement. He loved jazz but detested any jazz recorded after the early 1930s. He loved country music but decreed that nothing good came after 1955. Nashville? He called it “Trashville.” Rock ’n’ roll? A cancer.
“How can you listen to Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw when you’ve listened to Jelly Roll Morton?” he said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2001. “It’s like coming out of a mansion and living in a chicken coop.”
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Mr. Bussard not only collected 78s; he also built a basement studio in his parents’ house in the 1950s to make his own. Under his Fonotone label, he recorded artists like the Possum Holler Boys, a country and rockabilly band, and the Tennessee Mess Arounders, a blues group (he was a member of both), as well as the influential fingerstyle guitarist John Fahey. (He later moved his collection and his studio to the house he shared with his wife and daughter.)
Mr. Bussard was one of the “characters” (so to speak) profiled in Amanda Petrusich’s Do Not Sell At Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78rpm Records (affiliate link), a book that I both liked and found depressing.
Lawrence emailed an obit for Drew Ford, of It’s Alive Comics.
A graphic novel publisher that specialised in bringing out-of-print indie comic books back into print, as well as continuing and concluding stories where it could, and generating brand new ones, It’s Alive Press recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to revive the eighties black-and-white comic book series, Fish Police. Drew Ford had struggled with fulfilment issues of late, but there is no doubt he was a major contributor to the American comics industry in honouring its past heroes and bringing deserved attention to projects and people that time had forgotten – or at least not thought about for some time.
Edited to add: I forgot I wanted to include this one. Antonio Inoki.
Inoki entered politics in 1989 after winning a seat in the upper house, one of Japan’s two chambers of parliament, and headed the Sports and Peace Party. He traveled to Iraq in 1990 to win the release of Japanese citizens who were held hostage there.
He was also a professional wrestler.
Inoki brought Japanese pro-wrestling to fame and pioneered mixed martial arts matches between top wrestlers and champions from other combat sports like judo, karate and boxing.
Perhaps most famously, he fought Muhammad Ali in a MMA match in 1976.
The result of the fight, a draw, has long been debated by the press and fans.
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 1st, 2022 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Books, Music, Obits, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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