Legendary collector, Joe Bussard is putting records out once again!

After running the last 78rpm label in the US (R.I.P. Fonotone Records 1956-1974), Joe had relegated his efforts to promoting old-time music by making cassette tapes for people hungry to hear his rare treasures and producing his radio show Country Classics for stations in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. But last year, Joe and his daughter Susannah Anderson had the idea to produce a compilation of Civil War tunes and they rang the office of Dust-to-Digital to gauge interest in distributing such a compilation. It was an easy decision for DTD, mainly because Joe’s always been there for us so it was time to partner together once again.

“The recordings heard in this collection all come from the shelves of Joe Bussard of Frederick, Maryland. A lifelong lover of old-time music (and early blues and jazz besides), Joe is famous among record buffs for his single-minded passion for finding and preserving old discs, his hospitality to visitors who want to hear them, and his generosity in making them available for reissue so that they can be enjoyed by succeeding generations. But thanks to his homemade radio programs, which he continues to make and which can be heard on several stations, and to the hugely entertaining documentary Desperate Man Blues (Dust-to-Digital DTD-05V), Joe has become known far beyond the tight little community of collectors, and is recognized all over the world as a true American one-off, a man for whom the music of the past lives again every time he puts on a record.” – Tony Russell, from The Year of Jubilo liner notes

“Bussard’s got s**t that God don’t have. It is one of the great glory holds, probably the finest in the world. He was canvassing earlier than most, and he’s been at it longer, and he took everything: He recognized stuff that he really didn’t even like at the time, but he recognized it as being good, and he kept it.” – collector and musician Tom Hoskins, an authority on pre-World War II Delta blues, for the Washington City Paper

Click here for tracklist