Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting
—New York: Ten Speed Press (2020)
Thirty years ago IBMA honored the late DJ Bill Vernon, who became estranged from his family after he left Wall Street for bluegrass record collecting. We located his brother, who turned out to collect classical records. Dust & Grooves illuminates 130 major collectors in many countries and genre in a hefty 440 page coffee table book featuring 250 full page color photos and a dozen photo essays. 78 legend Joe Bussard, for whom good music ended in 1956, represents bluegrass folks, perhaps more drawn to collecting than most. The endless shelves of brown sleeves depicted in the lengthy article contain almost all of the old-time and bluegrass 78 catalog. We also see Bob May sorting through a stack of bluegrass 45s, and elsewhere album covers appear. The passion and knowledge of these collectors maintain the reader’s interest.
