The Bob Pinson Recorded Sound Collection at Age Fifty

Last year, the Museum hosted a special panel discussion and listening session in honor of its first acquisitions director, Bob Pinson. The program celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of one of the crown jewels of its world-class holdings—the aptly named Bob Pinson Recorded Sound Collection.

Before joining the staff in 1973, Pinson sold the Museum more than 14,000 rare phonograph records and radio transcription discs. The collection doubled the size of the Museum's recorded-sound holdings, an archival backbone for country music scholars around the world and the heart of the Museum itself.

The program featured Nathan D. Gibson, folklorist and archivist; Bill Ivey, folklorist and former Museum director, who negotiated the collection’s acquisition; and Tony Russell, scholar and discographer, with whom Pinson worked to research and produce the definitive "Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921-1942."

Watch the full program: https://watch.countrymusichalloffame….