Joe Bussard was born July 11, 1936, the hottest day ever recorded in his hometown of Frederick, Maryland. Maybe it was the record heat that gave Joe his fever for music and collecting. By the time he was six, he was listening to bands playing live on the radio and was a big fan of Gene Autry.
In 1947, he heard Jimmie Rodgers for the first time and his passion for collecting was unexpectedly born. His local record store didn't have any recordings of Rodgers, and Joe's quest began. He started asking old folks around town if they had any of Rodgers' music.
A woman gave him a box of records. Not only did it have two of the sought-after Rodgers' 78s, but lots of other material that sparked his interest.
Scouring the Back Roads
When Joe was old enough to drive, his searches expanded and he really began to gather treasures. He traveled the back roads of Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Virginia, knocking on the doors of homes and following tips passed on from the strangers he met. "I could look at a house and I could smell the records inside," says Joe. "It was best to go to the kitchen door." His heart would beat faster when he saw an old "Victrola" in a house.
One of his favorite areas for "finds" was from Front Royal to Lurray, Virginia. Soon Joe met a guy from Washington, D.C., who told him about jazz, which opened another whole world to him. He started visiting black neighborhoods where discoveries abounded.
Makin' Music
Joe's interest in music went beyond just listening. He played guitar, mandolin and banjo, performing with a number of bands over the years. As a young man in the National Guard, he played steel guitar and teamed up with a musician friend to start recording, eventually buying a disc cutter.
Joe recorded a number of tunes with well-known mandolin player John Duffy, who also played with the Country Gentlemen. Over the years Joe recorded such names as John Fahey (who recorded as Blind Thomas), the Possum Holler Boys, the Georgia Jokers and dozens of local groups on his Fonotone label. Joe's recordings were sold in catalogues and on the radio. He last recorded in 1970.
Radio Days
In 1959, Joe took his vintage 78s to the airwaves with a radio show called Country Classics on WELD in Fisher, West Virginia.
Today, Country Classics is the longest-running show on the station and it also airs on WPAQ in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, WNCW in Spindale, North Carolina, and WTHU in Thurmont, Maryland.
Joe says it's not the size of his collection that counts — it's the quality. And behind every record on the shelf is a tale of how it came into his hands. "I've been all over the place," he says. "I've met so many people, spending sunup to sundown with a fruit pie and a bottle of gutwash at the old country stores."
In 1968, he made one of his biggest scores: store stock from a record store near Bluefield, Virginia. The store had been there since 1920 and was going out of business. Some of the 78s were brand new and had never been played.
Without doubt, Joe's most well remembered find is Black Patti #8030, "Original Stack O' Lee Blues" by the Down Home Boys — Long Cleve Reed and "Little" Harvey Hull. Found near Tazewell, Virginia, under a bed in a box with three feet of dust, it was one of 15 Black Pattis in mint condition and it turns out to be the only known copy of the recording.