Bruce Bastin
Bruce Bastin is an author/music historian and record company executive based in the UK. In his youth, he was drawn to jazz and blues, and spent much time at the local record shop and dance clubs listening to and purchasing the music that he enjoyed. In his college years, Bruce spent time in the field seeking out musicians to record and document in the southeastern United States. This led to the writing of two books Crying for the Carolines (1971) and Red River Blues (1986, 1995). He procured a Master's degree in Folklore at UNC Chapel Hill, in 1973. Throughout his career, Bruce amassed a large 78 record collection and began to network with record companies, other collectors and folklorists. He eventually started releasing a variety of genres of music on various record labels. This coincided with his career as a teacher. Today, Bruce is retired and still enjoys listening to and collecting music. I recently talked with Bruce about his career.
R.V.B. - Hi Bruce... Robert von Bernewitz from Long Island, New York... how are you?
B.B. - I'm fine, thank you.
R.V.B. - You've had a wonderful career and the music community thanks you.
B.B. - Well I've had a lot of fun, thanks.
R.V.B. - You grew up in post World War II correct? How was the general atmosphere during those times?
B.B. - I was very fortunate. My mother always looked after the kids in a wealthy family and we grew up in a decent sized house. It was mostly out in the country so I was a fortunate young fellow.
R.V.B. - Were you aware that something bad happened and the country was re-grouping after the war?
B.B. - I was aware of that. Strangely enough - not that I knew the war was on at the time - I was saved from drowning once by a Czech pilot who was on day release. He was just walking along the beach and he saw me fall in. He pulled me out and saved my life. I was about four or five. My mom didn't see me fall off this rock but I did. So I knew a little bit about the war, but not really conscious of it. (Hahaha) I saw a "Doodlebug" being shot down once and heard a bomb or two. I didn't know anything about it. I just did what kids did. I was very, very fortunate.
R.V.B. - How about musically?
B.B. - I didn't know anything about music at all... in that sense. There was no music that I was aware of. It was only until about 1956, when somebody lent me Rex Harris's 1952 book on Jazz.
I started to shuffle through it and I quite liked it. I listened to some music. I went to see a couple of traditional jazz bands like Chris Barber and Humphrey Lyttelton. That's about it. When I was a student in London in 1958, I went to Dobell's record shop... which was just down the street from where I was living. You could wander in there in the morning and pick up a few records. You could wander in there in the evening when somebody brought in some more. I started picking up mostly LP's and some 78's... of course. I was getting Jazz and blues, and started getting hooked then.
R.V.B. -Were you into the skiffle movement at all... with Lonnie Donegan and others?
B.B. - I wasn't into it but I went to see them sometimes... Lonnie Donegan and Ken Colyer skiffle groups. I didn't mind it. I thought it had no musical potential what so ever. I preferred the local jazz bands.
R.V.B. - Chris Barber had a very fruitful career. What was your impression of him when you saw him live.
B.B. - I liked Chris. It was a very good band indeed. We knew each other from correspondence and met once.
R.V.B. - When did you decide that you wanted to pursue the teaching career?
B.B. - It wasn't so much a decision. We do what was then called "A Levels" in England. If you got through that you could go on to a university. At the time I got my A Levels, I hadn't a clue what to do so I thought "I might as well go to a university." (Hahaha) So I went to study geography and history. I stayed on and followed on those roots. It was just an easy way out. When I got the degree qualification, I thought " What the heck am I going to do now?" (Hahaha) One of the guys - we'd been in school together - went on to a BA course to become a teacher. So I became a teacher because I couldn't think of anything else to do.
R.V.B. - A lot of people at that age don't know what to do. At least you made a decision and it turned out to be the right one.
B.B. - Well, it was... yes. Once I was into it, I enjoyed doing it. I got on well. I stayed in teaching. I went to a good rural school for a couple of years and I decided to go to the States. So I came to the States in 63/64... went down to South Carolina. Then took off around the country. We had an ex London ambulance... which we converted so that you could live in it. We shipped it across to the USA and followed ourselves on the Queen Mary, picked it up in New York and drove it down to South Carolina. We ended up in Clemson, South Carolina.
R.V.B. - Did you go there just to tour the US?
B.B. - I just thought that I liked the place and I liked the music, and if you don't do it when you're young, you don't do it at all... so that's what we did.
R.V.B. - So you didn't go there to do music research at that time?
B.B. - No not really. I did pick up records when I could. I found some in Atlanta and in South Carolina. We took off across country and stayed in California and Houston for a while. I was a social worker in South Carolina and I picked up some social work in Houston. It was quite fun. I did get to see rural people.
R.V.B. - I see in your notes, while you were in Houston, you found a rather large 78 collection.
B.B. - That was the first batch. I was very lucky. When we were in South Carolina, there was a student staying with us who was from Houston. He said "When you get down to Houston, you ought to go down Westheimer and look up Mrs. Robinson. She has a little store out there." So I went there and told her I was looking for old 78's. She said "Come outside." So I went outside and she had a garage full of the things. I spent ages sorting them out while I was there. I packed them up and sent back about 1,600 very good records in a big wooden trunk back to London. That was the first big haul I found.
R.V.B. - Did you know what you were looking at? Did you recognize the names or did you take some chances on thing that maybe you weren't familiar with?
B.B. - I took some chances. There was a magazine called "Blues Unlimited" over in England, which had been out since April 1963. It was run by Simon Napier and Mike Leadbitter. I knew some of the names of the artists. I was looking for Houston artists... Lightnin' Hopkins and people like that. I did know some of the people and labels I was looking for. If they were someone I never heard of, I just picked them up on the off chance. Mrs. Robinson had a good record player so I could go play the records. I could hear if it was worth picking up or not.
R.V.B. - So that record batch was an education in itself.
B.B. - Yes, it certainly was. A lot of the records were local and extremely scarce now. I was very lucky to come up with a batch like that.
R.V.B. - So when you got back home, you resumed your teaching career.
B.B. - Yes that's right, back in my teaching career in the same school. I asked "Is there a job going?" They said "You can teach English next week if you'd like." I was an English teacher for a semester. Then the geography guy left and I resumed my job as a geography teacher.
R.V.B. - When you went back to America in 1968, was that with Pete Lowry?
B.B. - No. In 1968 I just went back because a daughter of a professor I knew... I had asked her to look out for records and she found this store in Athens, Georgia. I just flew out and picked up a load of records from there. That was 68. I also went back to Houston to pick up a few things from there. I actually ran through Cajun country and made my first contact with Cajun musicians, in south Louisiana. I got heavily involved with them much later on.
R.V.B. - Did you meet Mack McCormick when you were in Houston?
B.B. - I didn't know Mack then... no. Once I had left we had corresponded some. In 1975, at the American Folklore Society meeting in New Orleans, Tony Russell and I had addressed this meeting and Mack was there. That's the first time I'd actually met Mack. We had corresponded before it. At that time I had already started to organize issues on the Flyright label of some of the Library of Congress recordings that John and Alan Lomax had recorded in prisons. Mack knew about that.
R.V.B. - When did you work with Pete Lowry?
B.B. - That must have been probably the early 70's. He was a student in a university in the Netherlands and knew an English collector and had come over to visit him. He invited me up as well, so I met Pete then. That was about 68/69. Pete and I went together in 1970 looking for records. He'd seen Buddy Moss in New York so we headed down looking for records and visited Moss in Atlanta. On the way back up north we stopped in Chapel Hill, North Carolina because Moss mentioned some blues people who'd recorded... Floyd Council, and Willie and Richard Trice. We stayed at a motel there to see if we could find them. That was my first contact with Chapel Hill. I liked the place and two years later I was back out there at grad school.
R.V.B. - I see that you studied Folklore with Dan Patterson.
B.B. - Yes. The opportunity arose. I had been in touch with Alan Jabbour at the Library of Congress. We worked on the field recordings, so Alan knew me, and knew that I was interested in things in the south, so Alan suggested going down to Chapel Hill and getting into a post grad course... I'd be there and I could do things. However it came about, I got in. Alan must have been involved with that. Once I was there I got out and did things.
R.V.B. - When you got out and did things... was that like search for musicians to record that weren't found yet?
B.B. - Yes. Once Buddy Moss pointed us in the direction of people he knew who had recorded on the '30s... the Trice Brothers and Floyd Council, we went to look for them. Then we actually started finding one or two other people.
We went to find a guy in Spartanburg named Pink Anderson. As a result of that, we ran into other musicians like Baby Tate and Peg Leg Sam. People kept turning up. Once you started looking, other doors opened. Pete and I did that in 1970. We turned up a few things and when I came back to England, Blues Unlimited magazine said "Why don't you write articles for the magazine about it?" I said "Okay." I remember books were being published by a little book company. They said "Why don't you do a book about the southeast?" I said "There's not enough." Simon Napier said" Go back and find out then." (Hahaha) So I went back and found out. The book got published in 1971. Of course that helped trigger off the possibility of getting into Chapel Hill. By the time I had got there, this book had come out.
R.V.B. - Was there anything that you learned at Chapel Hill that really helped you in your field work?
B.B. - There were a whole lot of things. It was an extremely comfortable place to be. I got myself a little car to wander about. I just got in under the fabric of things. I was never an American... if you know what I mean. I could putter about and never felt out of place. It was an easy place to have a base to go out and look for these things. Some of the staff that were there like Dan Patterson, had done so much for me. He was always pushing things. It was a very, very nice and comfortable spot.
R.V.B. - It sounds nice. So you were involved with starting record labels.
B.B. - Flyright records was started by Simon Napier and Mike Leadbetter in England. They had been putting out the magazine "Blues Unlimited" since 1963. When I had come to America they had asked me to look out for things. Mike told me which records to look out for. I started writing things for them. They started to issue one or two LPs of things. When I came back from Houston in 68, I had a lot of quite scarce 78's so we started compiling LP issues. Those issues were 99 copies. You could press 99 and there was no purchase tax. If you did more than 100 you had to pay purchase tax. There's just 99 so they're pretty scarce. Eventually we got into the business of putting quite a lot of records out.
R.V.B. - You mentioned going to Louisiana. What kind of experience was it for you learning about Cajun music tradition?
B.B. - That was quite fascinating. I picked up some LP's of Cajun music when I was in England. When I got out in 68 to Atlanta, I was going to go back down to Houston to Mrs. Robinson's store to pick up some more things. The only way to go was through New Orleans. I got in touch with Leroy Martin who had written notes to the LP Vin Bruce Sings Jole Blon and Other Cajun Classics. We met in New Orleans and he took me down to his house. I just found myself with the Cajuns. Leroy was a guitarist. I met up with this really good musician called Vin Bruce, who had a big recording career. He's in the Country Music Hall of Fame. He recorded with Columbia and other labels. Cajuns are great people. So I got a little hook in there. One of the early Flyright LPs was of Cajun music. That pointed me to be going there again. It was accidental really because we had put this first one out of material by Floyd Soileau on the Swallow label. When I was in New Orleans in 1975, at the American Folklore Society meeting where I gave an address, I thought I'd pop up and see Floyd. He was a bit north, at Ville Platte in Louisiana. I had gone into his store and was talking to him and he said "You ought to go down and see J.D. Miller... he's down in Crowley." From then on, we just hooked up on Louisiana music.
R.V.B. - Did you do actual recordings in Louisiana or did somebody else record them and you just released them?
B.B. - When we released LP's and CD's we leased the music. As far as the rural blues singers, Pete Lowry had a tape recorder. It was loaned to him from the Library of Congress. I had a pen and that was all I had.
R.V.B. - What about the European music? How did you go about assembling those issues?
B.B. - When I started putting albums out, I was issuing blues, I was issuing jazz... then I started getting into other European music. The music was recorded and held at EMI. Ruth Edge was the librarian there. She was interested in letting me lease material that wasn't in English. So I put out Portuguese fado records... Greek rebetika... calypso... tangos from Argentina... music from Cuba... West African... South African. These were all leased from EMI. Paul Vernon, who was a collector friend, used to go out and get the masters for me.
R.V.B. - How did you go distributing such a wide variety of music?
B.B. - Simon Napier had a record store. That was just for retail. As a result there were contacts where people would want to get things... mostly European countries. We made contacts with Americans about things we were putting out. I sold more overseas than I ever did in England. The Flyright label was their label but later on he was more involved with the retail side. I was more on the production side and overseas sales. We split into two different outfits. Flyright remained the same and I became Interstate Music. It was his title actually. That was my job... I manufactured things and sold them out wholesale.
R.V.B. - Did you ever travel to other areas besides the United States to gather music?
B.B. - We did find out in 1997, that there was a huge garage full of records in Portugal. So Paul and I went down there to sort through them. We did actually find some blues records there but you were talking about all sorts of music there. There was a lot of Latin American and Portuguese. There was music from literally all over the place. We brought about 16,000 78's back to England. I did bump into one or two fado singers there. I put LP's and CD's out from those records. The best of the Portuguese fado 78s are back in Portugal now.
R.V.B. - I noticed that you had a nomination for best album notes with David Evans.
B.B. - In 1980 David Evans and I won a nomination from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for the notes to "Atlanta Blues 1933". Later, I won the Ascap-Deems-Taylor award for my book RED RIVER BLUES.
R.V.B. - What kind of interaction did you have with Paul Oliver?
B.B. - I knew Paul but we didn't have a great deal of interaction. He was the one who sort of triggered me off to do my first book "Crying for the Carolines." That was put out in 1971. Crying for the Carolines is basically a 1920's dance band title. Ambrose is my favorite English dance band that did that. It was quite a nice title because I was based in the Carolinas. Most of the puttering around I did was in the Carolinas. Crying for the Carolines was about the things I'd done up to 1970. Later, there was a book by Larry Cohn on Blues in America. He asked me if I'd do a chapter on the South East and Texas. Paul said "You should do that." I said "It sounds easy, but I don't know very much about Texas." He said "You've been there haven't you?" I said "I've been there" and he said "Most of the others haven't". (Hahaha) So I wrote a chapter on blues in the South East and Texas.
R.V.B. - I know Paul was into that Southeast Texas stuff.
B.B. - He was a remarkable man. He was the one doing it. Other people fluttered in behind. Whoever did anything like that was inspired by that man.
R.V.B. - What are you proud about with your mark in music?
B.B. - I'm happy that my research enabled me to make the information readily available, by writing books and articles. I'm especially pleased that my interest in collecting 78 rpm records enabled me to dovetail into Flyright Records and then to broaden production of albums and compact discs to document blues and other musical styles, in order to make this music available to all. Things I've put out. On the blues end, I did issue a lot of Library of Congress recordings that were done by John and Alan Lomax... recordings in penitentiaries. There's the J.D. Miller releases. There's an English magazine "Blues and Rhythm" where I had actually listed how many things I did of his. We're talking over 70 LP's and CD's. I'm very proud of putting them out. It helped put Louisiana music on the map. It wasn't just Cajun stuff, but blues people like Lightning Slim. There wasn't much of that music available in England. The other music I released as well... Portuguese fado... Greek rebetika... calypso... Cuban music... West Indian music... Tango's from Argentina. Paul Vernon, who was a collector friend used to go out and dig these things out for me. One of our other labels Harlequin was a jazz/dance music series. Jazz from European countries in the 1920's and 30's... also international like Chile, Russia, South Africa. It was put together by Euro Jazz Specialist, Rainer Lotz. I was very proud of that. I also put out some music which was Nazi propaganda jazz... most peculiar stuff. It was released on 78's under the name Charlie and his Orchestra lead by a guy called Charlie Schwedler. Very, very rare records now. They didn't make many of them. Made under the control of Nazi Reich Minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels, in charge of radio broadcasting. They sent them out to radio stations and they were beamed out for propaganda broadcast. They would broadcast them for the troops to listen to. They were in English but you'd have anti-Roosevelt and anti-Churchill lyrics during the jazz numbers. They were tremendous musicians. They employed a lot of Italians and some of the best musicians from the Netherlands. A lot of the guys played really good music. I was proud of putting those together. They were very, very nice.
R.V.B. - What are you doing these days? Are you semi-retired?
B.B. - I'm fully retired. I actually closed Interstate music last year.
R.V.B. - How do you spend your days relaxing?
B.B. - Putting things together for you. (Hahaha) I still collect things. I found a few nice big hauls of records. I still try to help other people out. If they're putting out CD's or researching things, I'll try to help out on that. Once in a blue moon I'll write a few things, but not so much now. I've written hundreds of LP and CD notes. (See Chapel Hill's SFC holdings).
R.V.B. - It's amazing that when you're a collector, you just can't stop. Once it's in you, it's hard to stop the urge.
B.B. - It is. The big thing is I'm a '20s jazz guy really. That's where I came in. Also post war blues. I'm just very fortunate to have a very good post war blues collection. The rare pre-war blues things, nobody's got. I have a few. It's always fun trying to find a few more.
R.V.B. - I'm sure you've heard of John Tefteller.
B.B. - Oh yes. I always try to buy his calendar every year. I used to buy from John when he used to issue auction lists. I have one or two really good records from him. They're not cheap... are they? At the same time, you don't find them anywhere else.
R.V.B. - I think he spent over $30,000 for a Tommy Johnson 78.
B.B. - That wasn't me (Hahaha)
R.V.B. - That's a classic example of the record buying addiction.
B.B. - I bought a very expensive Blind Willie McTell/Ruth Willis record on Okeh. I got that from him. I loved every second of it. I've gotten some wonderful records from him. I never really got close to a Tommy Johnson record. (Hahaha)
R.V.B. - Did I see that you have a collection at Santa Barbara?
B.B. - Yes. That was basically "World music." A lot of country stuff went out there. My company bought it in. A lot of it came from Portugal. They had a lot of country and ethnic music. It's silly to have it and not do anything with it.
All the files and master tapes went to Chapel Hill. I've been working with Dan Patterson (former chair of Folklore curriculum at Chapel Hill) on a film. One of the things that I was pleased with at Chapel Hill was we put on a blues festival. It was three nights in April 1973. We brought all sorts of people in for it. Local people... people came up from Atlanta. We brought J.B. Hutto down from Chicago. He drove down with his band. I met him in England before that. It was a fantastic thing. It may have been the first blues festival in the south. It came about without realizing it. I suspect Dan Patterson and the student union was part of it. It was a remarkable thing to do. There was loads and loads of people there. I'm very happy that it took place.
R.V.B. - It just goes to show that music transcends barriers, because obviously there were some race issues in the southern states.
B.B. - I'm lucky in the fact that I wasn't an American, I was an Englishman. When Pete Lowry and I went out to a house to interview somebody, I'd go first. I go to the door and say "Good morning. I'm actually looking for ...." I'd give my best English accent. They might come up with an answer but more often than not they'd go "Huh???"
R.V.B. - Hahaha
B.B. - But I had them hooked... if they wanted to listen to me. We always carried a little portable tape recorder with us when we were following up a lead. Curley Weaver's daughter told us she knew a friend of Barbecue Bob who had recorded in the 20's. His real name is Robert Hicks. I had his music on the cassette player. The friend wasn't saying very much so I just turn the cassette player on. The inside of the house exploded. Five people came out and one of them had been in school with Barbecue Bob. They wanted to know what two honky's were doing coming to the door. You could just break barriers down left, right and center. Being an Englishman made it a lot easier.
R.V.B. I could imagine so. You mentioned Barbecue Bob. I believe he had his guitar slightly out of tune on purpose to get a distinctive sound. Did you notice that also?
B.B. - That's interesting because he learned how to play from Curley Weaver's mom, Dip Weaver. We went out to see his sister who lived in Atlanta. When I knocked on the door she wasn't really interested. But when I played the music, the door came open. When I went out with Pete, if I couldn't get through with my English accent, I'd just play some music.
R.V.B. - You were a good person to have around.
B.B. - I was quite useful. Pete and I covered the ground and did lots of good things. We were lucky. We didn't get shot. On at least two occasions it could of happened. You had to just keep your nose clean doing these things. If you're straight with people, they're usually straight with you.
R.V.B. - Thank you for sharing your story and spending this time with me.
B.B. You're welcome.
Interview conducted by Robert von Bernewitz
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