Digitizing And Preservation Project

We have the great good fortune of getting a 2007 Archiving and Preservation Grant from the GRAMMY Foundation for digitizing tapes from the Lou Curtiss Sound Library. Starting with performances from the early San Diego Folk Festivals and related concerts, we hope to preserve a historically important record of American Roots Music – especially as it lived and grew in San Diego in the years of the early 1960s through the late 1970s.

This grant will help us get started by preserving 400 of the earliest tapes in the collection. But there are many hundreds more that are in urgent need of preservation. If you have an interest and ability, we have many needs that you could help with, including donations of expertise, equipment and supplies. If you would like more information about how you could help out with this project, please drop Lou a note.

Participating Agencies

We are currently working with the Library of Congress, Center for American Folklife and the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive. The recordings are mostly on 1/4 inch reel-to-reel tapes, and are the only recordings in existance of San Diego performances by the likes of:

Alice Gerrard
Benny Thomasson
Bessie Jones
Big Joe Williams
Boys of the Lough
Cliff Carlisle & Wilbur Ball
Cottonmouth D’Arcy
Dave Page & The Samsa Gael Caeli Band
Doye O’Dell
Ed Lowe & Tom Sauber
Elizabeth Cotton
Frankie Armstrong
George Winston
Glenn Ohrlin
Hank Penny
Happy Traum
Jean Redpath
Jean Richie
Johnny Walker
Kenny Hall
Kirk McGee & Blyth Poteet
Lily Mae Ledford
Louis Boudreault
Merle Travis
Mike Seeger
Patsy Montana
Ray & Ina Patterson
Reverend Gary Davis
Rita Weill
Rosalie Sorrels
Rose Maddox
Sam Chatmon
Sam Hinton
The Balfa Brothers
Tom Paley
Tom Waits
Tommy Jarrell
U. Utah Phillips

Other performers that are represented in the collection include Bob Stewart, Cousin Emmy, The Sweets Mill Mountain Boys, Johnny Bond, Vern & Ray, Olabelle Reed, Nimrod Workman, George Tucker, Kyle Creed, The Golden Eagles (New Orleans Indians), The Wright Brothers Gospel Quartet, The Como Mississippi Fife & Drum Band, Model T Slim, Santiago Jimenez, Los Madrugadores, The England Bros., Bill Staines, The Hoosier Hot Shots, Blind Joe Hill, Thomas Shaw, Ervin “Big Daddy” Rucker, Pop Wagner, Jim Ringer, Otis Pierce, Silly Wizard, Dave Surman, Stan Hugill, Louis Killen, Texas Lil, Byron Berline, D.L. Menard, Martin, Bogen & Armstrong, John Jackson, Bonnie Jefferson, Fro Brigham, Robert Jeffery, Bob Bovee & Gail Heil, Sister Helen Sanders.