Country Music Rookie Cards on Back to the Country

When I was a kid I was obsessed with collecting baseball cards. I was constantly re-sorting and cataloging my collection, reading and memorizing the statistics on the cards, and ambitiously hunting for my favorite players' Rookie Cards.

Fast forward many years and I'm pretty much doing the exact same thing, except that these days I collect country music records instead of baseball cards. I'm still constantly re-sorting and cataloging my collection, still memorizing all the statistics on the labels and in the deadwax, and I'm also always hunting for my favorite artists' Rookie Cards, or debut recordings.

Over the past 20 or so years I've found quite a few of them and tomorrow morning (11/10/2021) from 9-noon (CST) I'll be playing my very favorite Country Music Rookie Cards for ya on Back to the Country, WORT 89.9 FM (streaming via wortfm.org or via the WORT app). Hope you can join me!

Swede Home Chicago, The Wallin's Svenska Records Story, 1923-27 Event on Sunday 11/7

Just a short while ago Archeophone Records released an amazing 2xCD set documenting the history of Chicago-based Wallin's Svenska Records and the early musical contributions of Swedish immigrants in the US: Swede Home Chicago, the Wallin's Svenska Records Story, 1923-27. I played a small role in the project by digitizing about half of the 28 known 78 rpm discs as well as digging out some of the rare discs and sleeves from the Mills Music Library and the Swedish American Museum in Chicago.

Jim Leary wrote and annotated the beautiful 76-page booklet and Marcus Cederström did some stellar transcription and translation work along with adding additional notes. Rich Martin did the audio restoration and remastering while Rich and Meagan Hennessey did some breathtaking design and photo restoration It's an awesome project and this Sunday at noon (cst), Jim and Marcus will be talking about the label, the project, and sharing some of the rare tunes and images. The online event is free and you can register here: bit.ly/swedehome. Participants will receive the Zoom link ahead of the event.

I'm really looking forward to it and hope to see some of you there!