Joe Bussard, the collector who preserved early American recordings, has died at 86

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A young Joe Bussard in his basement, surrounded by vintage 78s. Courtesy of Dust-to-Digital hide caption

toggle caption Courtesy of Dust-to-Digital

A young Joe Bussard in his basement, surrounded by vintage 78s.

Courtesy of Dust-to-Digital

Joe Bussard, the record collector and American roots music historian, died Monday. Lance Ledbetter, founder of Dust-to-Digital, confirmed the death to NPR through Bussard's daughter Susannah Anderson. Bussard had been battling pancreatic cancer for almost three years. He was 86.

Bussard was born July 11, 1936 in Frederick, Md. From an early age, his passion was preservation. He sought out obscure 78-rpm records that otherwise would have disappeared: jazz, blues, bluegrass, country and folk recordings from the early 20th century — the history of America, pressed to shellac. In time, he amassed thousands of records all stored in his basement, none of them in any order except the one in his noggin.

Fonotone Records: Frederick, Maryland (1956-1969) by Jolly Joe's Jug Band

But Bussard didn't just collect old records, he made new ones. As a teen, he started Fonotone, a label that released 78s when no one else was, and focused on hillbilly, bluegrass and fingerstyle guitar music being made at the time, including some of celebrated guitarist John Fahey's earliest recordings. From 1956 to 1969, Fonotone documented what Mike McGonigal called "a different (and rarely seen) side to the folk revival, one originating less in the academic or protest sectors, and