Notes from a World Music Catalog, part 4

An occasional series about the heyday of World Music, analog recordings, John Storm Roberts and Original Music.

Part Four, Buying the LPs, continued.

Well!  It has been some time since I last posted anything.  The lassitude accompanying the end of the year has taken its toll on the blogging center of my little brain.  So even though I have been revising this particular post over and over in my head for months, I am going to put it up now to get the ball rolling again.  The photos are not particularly good (and even really good photos could not possibly convey how beautiful the LPs actually are), but they will have to do or I will never get on to the next project, which is highlighting some of John's formative influences through his catalog entries.  So, Happy New Year!  Go sit down somewhere quiet and really listen to some lovely music.

Notes from a World Music Catalog, part 3

John Storm Roberts with Betty the bookkeeper and Penelope the duck in front of my 1969 Beetle

An occasional series about the heyday of World Music, analog recordings, John Storm Roberts and Original Music.

Part Three, Buying the LPS.

In the 80's, JSR and I used to go down to Manhattan every couple of months to pick up Latin and Haitian music and eat at a Peruvian restaurant in the 40's, near Kubaney Records before they expanded and moved downtown to a bigger, flashier place. I always had corvina encebollado and a wedge of curried tuna fish pie with a chilled mashed potato crust , and a lovely corn soft drink. John usually tried something different each time.

Notes from a World Music Catalog, part 2

An occasional series about the heyday of World Music, analog recordings, John Storm Roberts and Original Music.

Part Two, the Original Music Catalog Itself

Be prepared for a little dry detail to start this post!  When I decided to write about the catalog I delved into my archival stash and picked one that I liked, as an example for study.  Working so closely with it as I did, I never really gave much thought to what it looked like. And it occurred to me that it might be useful to establish some facts before moving on to the romancing - to take a step back and get a look from a new perspective.

I was a little astonished by this example catalog from Winter 1991:  

• Dimensions: 9 inches tall by 6 inches wide
• Length: 40 pages
• Number of recordings: 200
• Number of countries represented: over 60
• Africa alone is represented by 61 recordings from 21 countries. 
• There are also 16 books and 11 videos included, plus an essay by John, and Qarl's Qassette Qorner.  
• I counted 95 recordings on LP only, a lot of them lavish affairs with glorious photos and extensive notes in several languages (I promise lots of lovely pictures of these wonderful albums are coming soon.)  

It seems quite an undertaking in hindsight. I was not a little impressed at what we managed to do!  Of course by this time John had built up a vast store of knowledge and the connections needed to hunt down what he wanted to make available.  Our own label often filled the gaps he saw in coverage of various forms and styles - but I'm getting ahead of myself!

Notes from a World Music Catalog, part 1

An occasional series about the heyday of World Music, analog recordings, John Storm Roberts and Original Music.

Part One, an introduction.

I don't have as many LPs as you think. I'm always saying that. It looks like a lot at first, but I've been plenty of places where people have had thousands of records. I am a piker compared to other collectors, in fact maybe I'm not a collector at all (hoarding is what the rest of the household calls it!)  However, most of my LPs come from a very particular time and place - when I worked for Original Music in Tivoli in the late 80's and early 90's. And so my collection is kaleidoscope of what once was called World Music.