I’M GETTING OLDER and a wee bit foggy between the ears, so I don’t recall when John Tefteller and I first met. I’d guess it was at the twice-yearly record convention in Austin, Texas, probably after we’d spoken on the phone. But I believe that I met him years earlier at a swap meet in California. Whenever it was, I liked John immediately: he was intelligent, approachable, affable, generous with his time—and he was not one of the naysayers!
And he was interested in seeing an accurate price guide in the field of record collecting, at least for blues and rhythm & blues 45s. Needless to say, he was ready, willing, and more than able to co-author such a book with me.
While John’s name is almost universally known in the field of record collecting today, he was not known that well then. He specialized in buying and selling 78s and 45s of the pre-rock & roll era, and that was a relatively small and specialized market. But even before I was involved with editing the price guides, I knew who he was. Still, the mythical figure that he is today was still forming then.
Nay to the naysayers
John and I mapped out a project: I would compile the basic discography and assign values to the records. These would be tentative values at best—I was out of my normal stomping grounds dealing with these records. In fact, the naysayers—and shake rattle and roll me, but there were lots of them!—thought I was so far afield that I would never get the book done, let alone get it right. 1
But having any value assigned to an endless list of collectables makes the job of placing values on them easier because you’re correcting something already there instead of conceiving of values and numbers from nothing but a memory. That is, looking at a list of collectable records with incorrect values is easier to correct than looking at a list of the same records with no values and having to think of an item’s value from scratch.
For example, here are the first five records by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup that RCA Victor issued as 45s, both without assigned values and with them:
RCA Victor 50-0000 That’s All Right / Crudup’s After Hours
RCA Victor 50-0001 Katie May / Boy Friend Blues
RCA Victor 50-0013 Shout, Sister, Shout / Crudup’s Vicksburg Blues
RCA Victor 50-0032 Tired Of Worry / Hoodoo Lady Blues
RCA Victor 50-0046 Come Back Baby / Mercy Blues
RCA Victor 50-0000 That’s All Right / Crudup’s After Hours ___
RCA Victor 50-0001 Katie May / Boy Friend Blues ___
RCA Victor 50-0013 Shout, Sister, Shout / Crudup’s Vicksburg Blues ___
RCA Victor 50-0032 Tired Of Worry / Hoodoo Lady Blues ___
RCA Victor 50-0046 Come Back Baby / Mercy Blues ___
RCA Victor 50-0000 That’s All Right / Crudup’s After Hours 100
RCA Victor 50-0001 Katie May / Boy Friend Blues 100
RCA Victor 50-0013 Shout, Sister, Shout / Crudup’s Vicksburg Blues 100
RCA Victor 50-0032 Tired Of Worry / Hoodoo Lady Blues 100
RCA Victor 50-0046 Come Back Baby / Mercy Blues 100
Can you see how difficult it is to look at the first two lists, see no numbers in the value column, and have to think the whole process through? As you can see, it is so much easier to look at the third list: if you know your stuff, you almost immediately know whether the values are correct.
But a list of records with the same value typed after it can be mind-numbing, so I made certain to break the numbers up so that John wasn’t looking at a list of the same figure over and over again:
RCA Victor 50-0000 That’s All Right / Crudup’s After Hours 100
RCA Victor 50-0001 Katie May / Boy Friend Blues 100
RCA Victor 50-0013 Shout, Sister, Shout / Crudup’s Vicksburg Blues 100
RCA Victor 50-0032 Tired Of Worry / Hoodoo Lady Blues 100
RCA Victor 50-0046 Come Back Baby / Mercy Blues 100
RCA Victor 50-0000 That’s All Right / Crudup’s After Hours 300
RCA Victor 50-0001 Katie May / Boy Friend Blues 200
RCA Victor 50-0013 Shout, Sister, Shout / Crudup’s Vicksburg Blues 100
RCA Victor 50-0032 Tired Of Worry / Hoodoo Lady Blues 300
RCA Victor 50-0046 Come Back Baby / Mercy Blues 150
As you can see, it is much easier to look at the second list and almost immediately know that the values are correct or incorrect than having to look at the first list and think the whole process through.
“Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup was one of the top-selling blues recording artists of the 1940s. Like many other performers who had little education and little familiarity with the music business or copyright law, Crudup was never fairly paid for the music he composed and recorded, and had to work as a laborer or bus driver to support his family. After Elvis Presley recorded three of his songs in the ’50s (That’s All Right, My Baby Left Me, and So Glad You’re Mine), Crudup became known as the Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” (Mississippi Blues Trail)
Working drafts
For me, the first draft was the easiest, as it primarily consisted of manual labor: finding the data and assembling it. Here that was finding lists of artists and records from books and magazines and copying them into Word. Then assign each record an approximate value.
It was also the longest, requiring thousands of hours of tedious work that took place over a period of more than ten years.
The first draft of Blues and Rhythm & Blues 45s of the ’50s consisted of approximately 13,000 entries and included discographical and pricing input from several contributors who had agreed to work with me. 2
This draft was shipped to Tefteller, who went made corrections, additions, and suggestions. He also called in several knowledgeable contacts to assist in this process, none of whom wanted any public credit for their contributions. 3
Then he sent it back to me.
I added the new data to my manuscript (now approximately 14,000 entries), printed out a dozen copies, and shipped these to various other experts for cross-checking. This second group of contributors included a few well-known experts who wanted nothing to do with me but agreed to cooperate because of their respect for Tefteller. 4
None of this second group had seen the manuscript before this, so they looked at the pages with a fresh perspective. They, too, made corrections, additions, and suggestions and sent their manuscripts back to me.
I entered the new data, made another copy, sent it Tefteller, etcetera.
John Tefteller of the World’s Rarest Records holding up one of the world’s rarest records, Tommy Johnson’s Alcohol and Jake Blues / Ridin’ Horse, released in early 1930 as Paramount 12950.
Final draft
The final draft of my manuscript was 15,000-16,000 entries (I wasn’t using a database and Word was fairly unsophisticated then so I didn’t get an exact count), printed out a dozen copies, and shipped it to Tefteller. John made more corrections, additions, and suggestions, and shipped the manuscript back to me. 5
This was essentially the book.
The final assigned values were approved by Tefteller. Even though most of the assigned values represented the consensus opinions of a few dozen people, Tefteller had the right to override any consensus value and assign his own.
The final manuscript as a book (its overall look including the layout, text, illustrations, etc.) was my responsibility. The Umphred Guide to Blues and Rhythm & Blues 45s of the ’50s was the result of this collaboration between John Tefteller, a few dozen dealers and collectors, and myself. 6
FEATURED IMAGE: On August 5, 1864, at the Battle of Mobile Bay, Union Admiral David Farragut led his flotilla through the Confederate defenses to seal one of the last major Southern ports. The fall of Mobile Bay was a major blow to the Confederacy, and the victory was the first in a series of Yankee successes that helped secure the re-election of President Lincoln later that year. (History)
It was at this battle that Commander Farragut legendarily commanded, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” This phrase has passed into the popular lexicon as meaning that one should forget risks and the obstacles in one’s way and persevere and get on with it.
In one of the great coincidences in American history—that is rarely taught in history courses—a Grant’s Pass was involved in Farragut’s endeavors, while a Grants Pass was involved in Tefteller’s and mine. (Maybe I should see if Alex Jones is interested in this coincidence.)
FOOTNOTES:
1 While I am an often over-the-top extrovert while Jon is a relatively reserved person, he was constantly assuring me and boosting my confidence during stressful moments!
2 I don’t remember when I decided on the title, but I always wanted it to be simple and to the point, and Blues and Rhythm & Blues 45s of the ’50s certainly qualifies.
3 I usually refer to Tefteller in the third person when writing because everyone—and I am only exaggerating a wee bit when saying everyone—who collects rare records knows the name Tefteller. Plus it’s a neat name!
4 They also saw that the values I had assigned the records were accurate. I mention this because some of thee contributors had been vocal naysayers who didn’t think it could be done—especially by a non-blues/rhythm & blues collector such as myself.
5 I used the inexact 15,000-16,000 figure because I wasn’t using a database and Word was fairly unsophisticated then, so I didn’t get an exact count and really don’t feel like counting them all manually now.
6 Finally, The Umphred Guide To Blues And Rhythm & Blues 45s Of The 50s was not so named because of any insecure ego of mine. (Hah!) I featured my name in the title to establish immediate name-recognition with my past work for O’Sullivan Woodside and Goldmine.
Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)