Avatar

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archives

@rockhalllibrary / rockhalllibrary.tumblr.com

News and collection highlights from the research library and archives of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.
Posts
Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
todaysdocument
Avatar
todaysdocument

Ella Fitzgerald et al v. Pan American

Born 100 years ago today, April 25, 1917, jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald faced discrimination when on tour. En route to a concert from Honolulu to Australia, Ella Fitzgerald was denied the right to board a Pan American flight, because she was African American. She filed this complaint against Pan American. Page 3 if the complaint is shown.

Complaint from Ella Fitzgerald, John Lewis, Georgiana Henry, and Norman Granz v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., 12/23/1954 File Unit: Ella Fitzgerald, John Lewis, Georgiana Henry, and Norman Granz vs Pan American World Airways, Inc., Civil 97-356 , 12/23/1954 - 12/27/1956. Series: Civil Case Files, 1938 - 1983. Record Group 21: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685 - 2009
Avatar

Archivists Celebrate Preservation Week

On April 26, 2017, archivists and preservation specialists will take to Twitter to answer your questions as part of Preservation Week 2017. This special preservation-focused edition of #AskAnArchivist Day, sponsored by the Preservation Section of the Society of American Archivists, will give you a chance to ask questions about how to care for your collections, get information on what to do with your family heirlooms, or just satisfy your curiosity about what those folks in the preservation department are doing. As experts who do the exciting work of protecting and sharing important historical materials, archivists have many stories to share about the work they do every day in preserving fascinating documents, photographs, audio and visual materials, and artifacts. Increasingly, archival work extends beyond the physical and includes digital materials.

#AskAnArchivist Day gives you a chance to get answers directly from experts, whether it is about boxes of papers, collections of historic paperclips, or your favorite mix-tape from high school. No question is too crazy or too mundane. Discussing preservation is a process that helps us all.

How does it work? #AskAnArchivist Day is open to everyone—all you need is a Twitter account. To participate, just tweet a question and include the hashtags #AskAnArchivist in your tweet. Your question will be seen instantly by archivists around the country who are standing by to respond directly to you. Have a question for just the Rock Hall archivists? Include our Twitter handle with your question: @RockHallLibrary. We may not know every answer right away, but we’ll get back to you after we’ve had the chance to do some digging. Just want to follow along? Search Twitter for #AskAnArchivist to see questions and answers as they are shared.

So get ready! Archivists from universities, museums, historical societies, churches, businesses, local and state governments, and other organizations are taking to Twitter to answer your questions all day long on April 26 at #AskAnArchivist.

The Rock Hall provides additional preservation support to the local community through our NEO Sound initiative, which was established to preserve Northeast Ohio’s musical heritage for future generations and to create an in-depth resource for researchers of all kinds. NEO Sound also serves as a vehicle for locally-relevant public programs at the Library & Archives, including lectures, panel discussions, performances, and other events. Check out our free zine, Preservation: 88 Lines About 44 Techniques, and our online NEO Sound research guide that includes a section on “Preservation at Home.”

#preservation week#rock hall library#rock and roll hall of fame#askanarchivist day#preservation#neo sound
Avatar

A Valentine for World Poetry Day

“Blue Valentines” by Tom Waits

She sends me blue valentines all the way from Philadelphia To mark the anniversary of someone that I used to be And it feels like a warrant is out for my arrest Baby you got me checkin in my rearview mirror Thats why I'm always on the run it's why I changed my name And I didn't think you'd ever find me here

To send me blue valentines like half forgotten dreams Like a pebble in my shoe as I walk these streets And the ghost of your memory baby its the thistle in the kiss Its the burglar that can break a rose's neck Its the tatooed broken promise I gotta hide beneath my sleeve I'm gonna see you every time I turn my back

Oh you send me blue valentines though I try to remain at large They're insisting that our love must have a eulogy Why do I save all this madness here in the nightstand drawer There to haunt upon my shoulders Baby I know I'd be luckier to walk around everywhere I go With this blind and broken heart That sleeps beneath my lapel

Instead these blue valentines to remind me of my cardinal sin I can never wash the guilt or get these bloodstains off my hands And it takes a whole lot of whiskey to make these nightmares go away And I cut my bleedin heart out every night and I'm gonna die just a little more On each St. Valentine's day Don't you remember I promised I would write you

These blue valentines Blue valentines Blue valentines

Image: A page from the handwritten lyrics to “Blue Valentines” by Inductee Tom Waits. From the Jeff Gold Collection.

Visit the Library & Archives to learn more!

#worldpoetryday#rock and roll hall of fame#rockhalllibrary#tom waits#inductee#jeff gold collection
Avatar
Image
Radiohead’s Thom Yorke in 1993: Bowie and Queen’s ‘Under Pressure’ is ‘the perfect pop song’
One of the more startling musical transformations in our era was the one that Radiohead pulled off between their 1993 debut album Pablo Honey and their 1995 follow-up The Bends. It wasn’t just Thom Yorke’s blond locks that cause quite a few critics to liken Pablo Honey to watered-down Nirvana. Pablo Honey got generally lukewarm-to-good reviews at the time—3 stars out of 5 from Rolling Stone, which is the same rating it currently receives at Allmusic.com (it must be admitted that Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s brief review is far more charitable than that rating suggests). And Radiohead’s later successes haven’t shielded the album from vitriol. At Pitchfork, notoriously one of Radiohead’s most unshakable defenders, Scott Plagenhoef gave it a piddling 5.4 out of 10 as late as 2009. Even that tepid Rolling Stone review ended with the words “Radiohead warrant watching,” but if you had said in 1993 that in less than a decade, Radiohead would be doing arenas with a highly worshipful following and the most ironclad critical reputation in all of rock music, that possibility would have seemed remote indeed. The Bends and OK Computer in 1997 were the astounding one-two punch that few saw coming and set Radiohead...
dangerousminds.net
#radiohead#libraries#archives#museums#dangerous minds#rock hall library#ray gun#rock and roll hall of fame
Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
libraryadvocates
#museums#museums advocacy day 2017
Avatar
reblogged
muspeccoll
Avatar
deckerlibrary

THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS AND THE GREATNESS OF HUMILITY: The values of Dr. Carla Hayden, the first woman and the first person of color in the position, can be seen in every aspect of the institution she runs.

Be sure to read the stellar article linked above over at the New Yorker on Dr. Carla Hayden, the new Librarian of Congress, previously head of the Enoch Pratt Free Library system here in Baltimore!

#libraries#librarian of congress#diversity
Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
broadcastarchive-umd
Image
A Few Thoughts on the Dusty Ol’ Archives
People love the exotic image of the crusading archivist in the jungle of his/her collection wearing a tan fedora with white cotton gloves, carrying a pack of acid-free record sleeves in pursuit of sonic treasures to be rescued from oblivion.
www.radioworld.com

There’s a chronic perception about the “dusty old archives.”

I’m not sure if this helps or hurts our preservation efforts. It’s true that we do occasionally find, or “unearth,” valuable things in less-than-wholesome places like damp basements, forgotten crawl spaces and blistering hot attic corners. But I would venture that 96 percent of the time we are neither digging up nor dusting off aural relics, like some prospecting Indiana Jones of the library desk set.

Believe it or not, a great many of our choicest bits of the past are cataloged (to one degree or another) and neatly arranged by format in a well-lit, temperature-humidity-controlled room with compact moveable shelving, for that handful of us who are fortunate enough. There is no dirt, no shovels nor pick axes.

There is a little dust, but there is a little dust just about everywhere. And there may be a faint scent of vinegar from degrading acetate tape or the scent of stale off-gassing from vintage lacquer discs. [more]

Avatar
rockhalllibrary

“People love that exotic image, a gritty romantic cliché of discovery, really: the crusading archivist in the jungle of his/her collection wearing a tan fedora with white cotton gloves, carrying a pack of acid-free record sleeves in pursuit of sonic treasures to be rescued from oblivion.

“The reality, however, leans more to the ongoing ordinary and methodical efforts of archivists and preservationists, behind the scenes, in civilized spaces with adequate staff and funding. We soldier on.”

#libraries#archives#museums#audiovisual preservation
Avatar
Image
That time the ‘world’s dumbest’ terrorist blew up the Rolling Stones’ equipment
Despite what recent political rhetoric would have you believe, terrorism is hardly the sole property of Muslims from the Middle East. Timothy McVeigh and his pals blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the left-wing Red Army Faction in Germany killed as many as 34 people in multiple incidents, and the Weather Underground destroyed the sub-basement furnace room of a townhouse on West 11th Street in 1970. One can multiply the examples. Indeed, depending on the time and place, there have been terrorist incidents where the most likely suspects—the suspects many would have instantly guessed—were radical French separatists in Canada. Such a case occurred in the summer of 1972 during the Rolling Stones’ legendary American Tour that year, when a bomb destroyed part of a truck and several speakers of the group’s gear several hours before a gig. New Musical Express, July 22, 1972 Rolling Stone reported at the time: The two equipment vans had arrived from Toronto and were parked on a ramp at the Montreal Forum. The dynamite blast that exploded under the ramp blew out a slew of windows in a nearby apartment and the cones of 30 speakers inside one of...
dangerousminds.net
#rolling stones#inductees#rock and roll hall of fame#libraries#archives#museums#new musical express#dangerous minds
Avatar
Image
In 1977 Paul McCartney released a cover album of ‘Ram’—and kept his involvement secret for years
When it comes to someone of the staggering musical achievements of Paul McCartney, there’s a whole lot to document, and a great deal of it has indeed been exhaustively documented. If you want to know what city Paul and the other members of the Beatles were in on any given date in 1966, you just have to look it up. And yet, some stories fall through the cracks, escape wider attention. Take for example the full instrumental cover album McCartney released in 1977 under the name Thrillington, the one that was a track-by-track cover of his 1971 album Ram. It wasn’t until 1989 that he admitted in public that he was responsible for the Thrillington album. Remarkably, the album was recorded in 1971 during the Ram sessions but got shelved when Paul and Linda McCartney turned their attentions to the formation of Wings. Six years later the album was released to modest (very modest) fanfare—but officially, McCartney had nothing to do with it. The only hint that he might have been involved was the painted image of his face in the control room on the album’s back cover art. Paul and Linda McCartney looking dapper The conceit of...
dangerousminds.net
#paul mccartney#inductee#dangerous minds#rock and roll hall of fame#libraries#rock hall library
Avatar

Now Available: Music Magazine Archive

Music Magazine Archive is a subscription database of digital collections focused on 20th and 21st century genres such as Rock, Folk, and Hip-Hop & Rap. It is available onsite at the Library & Archives.

These publications uniquely capture the social and historical context of each genre, and together support scholarly research areas such as race, class, gender, American studies, youth culture, and more across some of the most progressive decades of the 20th and 21st centuries. The database contains 1,460 issues comprising 100,552 pages and 91,254 articles. Researchers will find all material represented in the original publications, preserved in its original context, fully searchable and in high-resolution full color.

Titles include:

  • The Bob
  • Broadside
  • CREEM
  • Dirty Linen
  • Fairport Fanatics
  • Folk Works
  • Fusion
  • Hootenanny
  • Hotwire
  • Jazz and Pop
  • The Little Sandy Review
  • Maximum RocknRoll
  • Old Time Herald
  • OP (Lost Music Network)
  • Option
  • Paid my Dues
  • People’s Songs
  • Raygun
  • Royal’s World Countdown
  • Slash
  • Trouser Press
  • Under the Radar
#music magazine archive#rock and roll hall of fame#rock hall library#libraries#archives#subscription database#bowling green state university
Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
rockhalllibrary
Image
Rock Hall Library welcomes Peter Ames Carlin this Tuesday!
Carlin will discuss his new revelatory account of the life of beloved American music icon, Paul Simon.
www.rockhall.com

Author Series event with Peter Ames Carlin, author of Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon

WHEN: 7pm, Tuesday, January 24, 2017

WHERE: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Library & Archives, 2809 Woodland Ave, Cleveland, Ohio

TICKETS: This event is FREE with a reservation.

ABOUT THE EVENT: Carlin will discuss his new biography Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon. Audience members will be able to participate in a Q&A session, as well as purchase copies of the books for signing. Please visit our event page for more information.

You are using an unsupported browser and things might not work as intended. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.