Joe Bussard had a lifelong obsession with collecting rare 78 rpm records (approximately 15,000 covering jazz, blues, country, jug band and gospel) and joined him in spreading his love of music on the radio. spread a love of music among its visitors. He listened to fragile discs in his basement and died Monday on the ground floor of his cellar at his home in Frederick, Md. He was 86.
His death in hospice care was confirmed by his daughter Susannah Anderson. She said the cause was pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed in 2019.
“He basically lived the song, breathed the song, and got it out to as many people as possible,” said J.Orn Tefterer He is a rare record dealer and auctioneer, he said in a telephone interview. “It was his life from morning till night. I consider him a national treasure.”
And any fan of his treasure could come to his house and listen to his ’78s music.
“Anyone who knew him would say, ‘Come on,'” said Anderson.
From his home near the Blue Ridge Mountains, Mr. Boussard (pronounced Boussard) drove down the country roads of the South in search of 78, who was languishing in people’s homes. He was very selective in what he brought back to his basement. He loved jazz, but disliked jazz recorded after the early 1930s. Although he loved country music, he declared that nothing was good after 1955. Nashville? He called it “Trashville.” Rock ‘n’ roll? cancer.
“If you’ve heard Jelly Roll Morton, how can you hear Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw?” he said in a 2001 interview with the Associated Press. .
One day in the 1960s, Bathard was driving through the streets of Taswell, Virginia. He used to go door to door asking people if they had 78’s.
In a dusty box under the man’s bed, Mr. Bathard found some good national records (Uncle Dave Macon, carter family) and the sort of shocking discovery he longed for: 78 for the Black Patti label, recording jazz, blues and spirituals in the late 1920s.
“Oh my gahad!” he recalled thinking in the CD’s liner notes. “In the Basement: Joe Bathard’s Vintage 78 Treasury” (2002). “It was all I could do to keep my hands from shaking.”
“So I put it down and said, ‘Oh, that’s good.’
There were 15 Black Patti records, but the old man who didn’t care about them demanded $10 for the bunch. A few years later, Bassard said, he had his $30,000 offer for one of them, the “Original Stacked Olive Ruth.” Long Cleave Reed and Little Herbie Hull. he didn’t sell it.
“When I leave this world, I think I’ll be laying that record over me in my coffin,” he added.
Boussard built his life around his records. After working in a supermarket and his family’s produce supply business, he had not had a regular job since the late 1950s. He was supported by his wife Esther (Keith) Bathard, his hairdresser, and his parents.
Susannah Anderson said in a phone interview, “It’s like my mom and I are in one world and he’s in another. ‘It was tough. It was like a father who was home but absent.'”
Mr. Boussard’s profile washington city paper In 1999, his wife reportedly said that if she hadn’t been “a born-again, spirited Christian who dedicated himself to God the day I married him,” he “would have left long ago.” It is
But she also loves music (she had bluegrass records blaring elsewhere in the house while her husband had his music blaring from the basement) and his collection and appreciated that he was “preserving it for the sake of history.”
Mr. Bussard ivy shepardwas a disc jockey and collector of 78, and recorded several radio shows together, including WAMU in Washington and WBCM in Bristol, Virginia. Over his 40-plus years, he has recorded programs for various stations.
Shepard recalled that she and Bathard would often talk for hours on the phone while listening to records. She described visiting his basement as “the best experience in the world”.
She added: We were friends. “
Joseph Edward Bathard Jr. was born in Frederick on July 11, 1936. His father ran a produce supply business and his mother Viola (Kala) Bathard was a stay-at-home mom.
Around the age of seven or eight, Joe began stocking up on records by Western star Gene Autry, known as “The Singing Cowboy.” Within a few years, he heard and fell in love with country singer Jimmie Rogers. When he could not find any Rodgers records in his local stores, he began looking for them, knocking on local doors until a woman handed him a box containing two Rogers 78s.
As a teenager, he began hosting local radio shows in his parents’ basement. Upon obtaining his driver’s license, he expanded his search for his beloved records, touring Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina.
It became an obsession, pleasing him, making him dance in the basement, play the air sax, air guitar and air banjo. (He also played guitar and mandolin.)
A month ago, he went to a flea market in Emmitsburg, Maryland, looking for a 78, but found nothing.
“He had a lot of records left to hunt,” says Anderson, adding that he has no plans to move the collection at this time.
Boussard didn’t just collect 78. He also built a basement studio in his parents’ home in the 1950s to create his own Phonotone label, which included the Possum Horror Boys (a country and rockabilly band), the Tennessee Mess Aroundders (a member of the blues group), Influential Fingerstyle recorded artists such as his guitarist. John Fahey(He later moved his collection and studio into a house he shared with his wife and daughter.)
A 5 CD collection including 131 CDs from Mr. Boussard’s 78’s. “Fototone Records: Frederick Maryland (1956-1969)”, Released by Dust-to-Digital in 2005, it was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Box or Special Limited Edition Package.
In 2003, Mr. Boussard became the subject of a documentary, “Desperate Man Blues: Discovering the Roots of American Music” Directed by Edward Gillan.
In addition to Anderson, he has three granddaughters. His wife died in 1999.
Once, in a small coal town in southwestern Virginia, Mr. Bathard asked a gas station attendant where he could find records, and was told to go to a nearby hardware store. When he got there, the owner ushered him into his cache of 5,000 records that had never been played.
“The first record I pulled out was ‘Sobbin’ Blues’ by King Oliver from Okeh, a brand new, at least $400 record,” he says, referring to the record label founded in 1918. I excitedly recalled it in an interview with the Washington City Paper. The next thing I pulled was ‘Jackass Blues’ by the Dixie Syncopators. He picked 4 of his 78 stacks and paid $100.
“I was so elated when I left the store,” he said.