High Fidelity excepted, books about record collectors are pretty rare, but here’s one, and it’s brilliant. Specifically, it’s about the country blues of the early 20th Century, but what it has to say about music, collecting, obsession and even race relations will strike a chord with anyone who collects not just blues, but also jazz, soul, folk or, indeed, anything.
The story of the blues has been told many times but Hamilton tells it through the stories and attitudes of those who recorded, catalogued and collected it. She reflects the changing relationships between whites and blacks in America, from ‘race scientist’ Howard Odum, who captured rural singers on wax cylinders, almost like biological specimens, through to legendary field recorders such as Alan Lomax, later archivists such as Sam Charters and collectors such as James McKune, who more or less invented the concept of Delta Blues, paying a high price, in more ways then one, for his passion.
Here, too, are the stories of Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Leadbelly and Skip James, of legendary record shops, and forgotten magazines such as Jazzmen, Record Changer. Mostly it’s about collectors and their relationship with the blues, sometimes patronising, sometimes inspirational, always obsessive. An instant classic.
