Our distinguished American music list ranges from Aaron Copland to Bill Monroe, Marian Anderson to Marian McPartland, with Elvis, Louis Prima, Hazel Dickens, and John Cage rounding out the ranks. Our publicity manager used to work in the music business, so brings a keen personal interest to his work on behalf of the list.

If Michael could choose his workspace, I expect that he’d relocate to Mr. Blackmore’s basement so long as he could continue pitching our books uninterrupted. Brock Read’s evocative description of a college radio reunion is a must-read for anyone who appreciates the vintage of vinyl.

To this day, my father speaks in hushed tones of rare visits to Mr. Blackmore’s legendary basement, which was lined, floor to ceiling, with a collection of more than 50,000 jazz LP’s that he eventually bequeathed to the university. (For many years, the room also held one of several miniature transmitters, dispersed throughout Hamilton, that amplified WRCU’s signal.)

“You’d ask him, ‘What was Count Basie doing in 1947?'” said Robert J. Fraiman Jr., an alumnus who spoke at the dedication, “and he’d disappear into the basement and come back seven or eight minutes later with an armful of records.”