The Birthplace of Country Music Museum has been fortunate to receive many donations to its collections this past year. While these are too numerous to list individually here, the museum has recently received several large, notable collections of audiovisual materials worth highlighting.
The Scott Street Collection, consisting of bluegrass and old-time recordings, came to us from Richmond, Virginia; Mr. Street was an avid banjo player and record collector, as well as an accomplished lawyer and former president of the Virginia State Bar. Mack Blevins and his wife Ann, of Bristol, donated the extensive collection of bluegrass and old-time recordings that Mack, a former WOPI radio personality, collected when he was at the station. And Alan Maggard, whose father Charlie Maggard founded Maggard Sound Studios in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, donated the studio’s early master recordings to the museum. Consisting of masters, demos, and unreleased recordings, the Maggard collection documents commercial bluegrass, old-time, and gospel music in our region since the early 1960s.
These three collections together total roughly 6,000 items and will form the core of the museum’s audiovisual collection that will be used in the museum, on WBCM Radio Bristol, and by our community and visitors. We thank Scott’s family, Alan, Mack and Ann, along with everyone else who has made donations to the museum for their help in preserving and documenting our region’s music heritage.