Publish Date: Thursday August 28, 2008
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View photos/Kristen M. WhiteDan DeMuth holds a copy of Elvis Presley's first record, produced on the Sun label. |
To say that Dan DeMuth enjoys collecting records would probably be an understatement.
After all, DeMuth has, all totaled, more than 20,000 records in his home - and is still on the hunt for more - so the word "collection" just doesn’t seem to do it justice.
“It got to the point a few years ago that I had boxes and boxes I’d never gone through,” he said. “When I retired, I made it a project to start going through them. Now I have this truck load in a room, a very large room, and I spend my time cataloging and that sort of thing.”
It’s enough to be a full-time job. DeMuth estimates he has about 7,000-8,000 78s, 10,000 or more LPs and 4,000-5,000 45s in his library. Very few are duplicates.
Additionally, as his interest in records grew, he began collecting sheet music, music books and other related items.
“But I couldn’t play a note,” he said, noting he is not a musician. “I’m a listener. I probably listen to something daily.”
And with so many records, his choices will never run out. He said he doesn’t have a particular favorite record, artist or even genre, but instead it just depends on the day or his mood what might be deemed as favorite.
DeMuth’s collection spans all genres of music, from 1950s rock and roll that he grew up listening to, to early country and western music, to 1920s jazz, which is what started his interest in records.
“Growing up, my mother and dad had an old player and a collection of records. They had a little bit of what they referred to has 'hot jazz’ from the 1920s, and I got interested in that type of music,” he said.
“That got me started. As a teen I started collecting what was popular then, rock and roll, and then I started to ask, ‘Where did this music come from? It didn’t just start by itself,’ and that got me off into rhythm and blues and what used to be hillbilly. . . . it just kind of expanded from there.”
DeMuth also considers himself a history buff, so his enjoyment of so many types of music fits right in. “When you listen to music, it’s history,” he said. “Nothing started by itself.”
While most of DeMuth’s collection is individual records or music, he said occasionally he’s able to match a piece of sheet music to the record it’s from. He’s got some records that are worth “serious money” at $400-600 each, he’s got a few hundred LPs from Broadway musicals, and he even has some “picture discs” from the 1930s-1950s where the whole record is a photograph of the artist.
His collection is an obsession that his family “tolerates,” he said.
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View photos/Kristen M. WhiteParts of Dan DeMuth's record collection are housed in rows of bookshelves, library-style.
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“A lot of men have a mid-life crisis. Well, mine was buying records,” he laughed.
DeMuth said his collection really started to take off during his 40s, when his children were grown and he had more time and money to devote to records.
He buys records wherever or whenever he gets his hands on them. From the Internet to garage sales, when he finds something that interests him, he buys it. Or, listening to one record or artist will send him on a quest for a similar artist, a precursor or something else related.
Knowing that his family doesn’t share strongly in his interest, DeMuth said he won’t eventually “saddle the family” with his collection, but will likely donate it to a university some day. He said many universities throughout the country have begun accepting record collections because they serve as a form of history.
And with as many records as DeMuth has, a person could really learn a lot.
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