Craigslist score!

Every once in a while you come across something that seems like it's too good to be true and then it turns out to be as great as you hoped... It really doesn't happen to me very often, so when I saw an ad on Craigslist for some 78's like Jimmie Rodgers and Gene Autry, I assumed they would be the only good ones in the bunch and most likely beat to crap. The ad said something like "39 78 rpm records with artists like Jimmie Rodgers and Gene Autry". I called right away and set up a meeting with the lady who was selling them. We met and I looked through the first 10 records and decided to buy them. Everything for the most part looked to be in good shape and there were lots of original company sleeves, so that was cool. When I got them home and started looking through them, I got really excited! They were all pre-1940 records and they were mostly country/ hillbilly. Very exciting! The one posted here, Frank Blevins and his Tar Heel Rattlers is one of the gems. The other really great one was The South Street Trio doing "Mean Old Bed Bug Blues" on the Victor label. All in all, I ended up with about 20 records that are worth keeping, so not bad for $30!

How about one more from Memphis?

Here's another record that came out of Memphis in the 50's... It's Ramon Maupin on the Fernwood Records label singing "No Chance". I really like this song! I always find myself throwing this on the turntable when I only have time to spin a few records. It's usually at the top of my list... Something about it just gets me.

Skeets McDonald on Fortune Records

Here are two records that I acquired fairly recently... They're both Skeets McDonald on the Fortune Label out of Detroit, Michigan. I found "Birthday Cake Boogie" a couple of weeks ago at an antique mall here in Kansas City. I know it's not super rare, but I was pretty excited when I saw it in the bin. I always worry that I do some kind of weird subconscious freak out dance whenever I find something good, but I have yet to be escorted out of any establishment... Anyway, there were some other early 50's country 78's there, but I either had a copy already, or the condition forced me to leave it. There was some good stuff on Federal and Capitol, but they were cracked all the way to the label. Those are always hard to leave behind. The other record, "The Tatooed Lady", came in the mail today! I have a copy already that is beat to crap, so when I saw this up for auction I bid on it. It came from Nauck's Vintage 78 Auction. Here's another place with auctions where I just can't compete. I think I bid on 20+ records and only ended up with this one. Not that I'm complaining, but it cost as much to ship this one record as it did to purchase it. Oh well... Here you go!

Smokey Joe - "Listen To Me" on Flip

This has been so much fun, but I'm only going to do a couple more tonight... This is Smokey Joe Baugh on Flip Records singing "Listen To Me". Flip Records was owned by Sam Phillips, the same person who owned Sun Records. He released handful of records on Flip and then rereleased a couple of them on Sun. I think there was some kind of name copyright issue with Flip Records out of Hollywood and that's why the record label folded. I found this record in an antique store in Alameda, California... It's probably one of my most memorable finds. It was kind of weird because this record was just sitting on a shelf without any other records around it. I was starting to have visions of finding some other good stuff in the store, but this was it. Not that I'm complaining because this is pretty cool.