Plateprat med Jerry Zolten

Describe yourself using at least five words.
Author, producer, musician, and fanatic lifetime record collector

Robert Crumb & Jerry Zolten

If you ever wrote an autobiography, what would the title be?
Becoming Einstein

What’s your relationship with libraries?
My relationship with libraries has been one of the richest and most rewarding aspects of my time on the planet.

I grew up in a rust belt steel mill town that was lucky enough to benefit from an Andrew Carnegie library. The Carnegie Free Library it was called.

It stood alone at the top of a hill and looked like a castle or fortress of some kind. I'd spend an entire Saturday in there seeking out exotic sounding titles and reading it all.

Science fiction and dinosaurs and rocket ships and classic adventure, et al.

Later in life as a writer and researcher, libraries were treasure houses of information, not only on site, but through guides and devices that pointed the way or provided remote access to sources in other places and institutions.

What are your five favorite albums?
That is of course an almost impossible question to answer. Too many.

But I can answer in two ways. The first would be albums that I have been directly involved in either as producer or musician.

🔊"Beautiful Stars" by Isaac Freeman with Mike Henderson and the BlueBloods

🔊"Wreckin' the House/Live at Mt. Hope" by the Fairfield Four

🔊"Chimpin' the Blues" by Jerry Zolten and Robert Crumb

🔊"New Day Comin'" by Archie Blue with Van Dyke Parks

🔊"Code: Blue/Stages Then and Now" by Code: Blue

Or from another perspective, some that early on shaped my musical sensibilities and directions.

🔊"Crazy Little Mama" by the El Dorados

🔊 One Dozen Berrys" by Chuck Berry

🔊"Mingus Ah Um" by Charles Mingus

🔊"Bob Dylan/A New Star on Columbia Records" by Bob Dylan

🔊 "Drum Suite" by Art Blakey

What have you been listening to lately?
Digging deeper and deeper into pre-war blues, jazz, hillbilly, and gospel 78 rpms and post-war r&b, jump vocal groups, obscure garage bands, and gospel.

What are your three favorite album covers?

The El Dorados – Crazy Little Mama

Louis Armstrong And His Hot Five

Jerry Zolten & R. Crumb – Chimpin' The Blues

Do you collect records – and if so, why?
I do collect records... since I was a kid. And that is the big question. WHY?

Lots of reasons. First and foremost, having the music immediately at hand.
Also, the joy of the hunt. And with albums, the graphics and liner notes. But then when it comes to singles – and in my case that means both 78 and 45 rpms – it’s about discovery and rarity.

I sleep better at night knowing what records are exclusively on my shelves.

And in the end, camaraderie: the pleasure of sitting down with like-minded friends and by spinning records share the music (and with that, the kick of seeing them react and knowing that you own that record and they don’t!).

Graham Nash and Jerry Zolten

What’s the biggest difference between when you started collecting and how it is today?
When I started, the challenge was to find the music on record.
And in those early days of rock ’n’ roll, that wasn’t easy to do.

The way it worked, I’d listen to radio, especially the local stations that catered to Black listeners along with the distant urban stations I could pull in on my radio late at night. If I heard a song I liked, I’d go looking for a copy in the numerous record stores that existed on main streets and back alleys all around the region where I lived.

Many records were still in print or not that long after their release. Today, on the other hand, is a very different experience. In my head over the decades I’ve come to know the genres, artists, labels, and tunes I seek.

But the physical records, the original issues, have long been out of print, so the challenge is locating a copy – and more than anything finding it at a price I can afford, this at a time when desirable records (at least from my perspective) can be priced at hundreds of dollars and on up!

What was the last record you bought?
I buy records often in quantity literally every week.
Albums not so much, but 45s and 78s mainly.
A couple of my recent buys include on 45 rpm “Six O’Clock Bounce” by Piano Red on Groove,
🎶🔊“Fill Me Now” by the Argo Singers on VJ, and 🎶🔊“Glory Wave” by Dick Dale and the Deltones on Capitol.

On 78 rpm, 🎶🔊“Be Bop Baby” by the Peacheroos on Excello and 🎶🔊 “Worried Man Blues” by Johnny Young on Ora-Nelle.

What’s the best record purchase you’ve ever made?
Lots. But a standout was 🎶🔊 “Rough Rugged Road Blues” by Bumble Bee Slim on Paramount. At the time, the only known copy.

What’s your favorite song in a language or dialect other than your own?
Again so many. How about 🎶🔊 “Mbube” by Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds.

Who’s your favorite lyricist of all time?
Bob.

Would you describe yourself as an audiophile?
Not so much. I use very basic playback equipment and am very forgiving when it comes to sound quality.

Do you have a playlist you’d love to share? What makes it special?
I have compiled literally hundreds of playlists over the years.
In a couple of instances, though, these playlists have been published as albums or radio programs.

For example, I am currently looking for a label to release my album (a collaboration with Van Dyke Parks and international soca star David Rudder) of classic circa WWII-era Calypso. Here is an excerpt of the first ten from the track list:

TIGER – 🔊 The Beautiful Land of Iere [Decca 17382] 3/10/1939

LIONEL BELASCO – After Midnight [Decca F.40498]

KING RADIO – It’s the Rhythm We Want [Decca 17420] 2/1/1939

GROWLER – Trinidad Loves to Play Carnival [Decca 17401] 1/25/1939

LION – Shango Dance [Decca 17458] 2/10/1940

CARESSER – Amanja Soqua Me [Decca 17456] 1939

GORILLA – Brambroocoo Dance [Decca 17432] 2/8/1940

LORD BEGINNER – 🔊 After the Bacanal [Decca 17411] 1/30/1939

CARESSER – Theresa [Decca 17368] 3/3/1938

KING RADIO – Matilda [Decca 17410] 2/1/1939

Here’s the playlist selected by cartoonist Robert Crumb and I for “Chimpin’ the Blues”, our album of pre-blues and related 78s:

Frenchy’s String Band – 🔊 Texas and Pacific Blues
Macon Ed & Tampa Joe – 🔊 Warm Wipe Stomp
Eddie Head & Family – 🔊 Down on Me
Reverend J.C. Burnett and Congregation – 🔊 I’ll Just Stand and Wring My Hands and Cry
Bobbie Leecan’s Need-More Band – 🔊 Washboard Cut-Out
Joe Linthcombe – 🔊 Humming Blues
Lottie Kimbrough – 🔊 Rolling Log Blues
Louie Lasky – 🔊 How You Want Your Rolling Done?
Cheikha Tetma – 🔊 Guenene Tini
Cannon’s Jug Stompers – 🔊 Walk Right In
Geeshie Wiley – 🔊 Last Kind Words

Are there any music books you’d recommend, and what makes them stand out to you?

My own for obvious reasons: Great God A’Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds / Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music, 2nd Edition (Oxford University Press, 2022).

I’ve lately been reading and recommend Ricky Riccardi’s Stomp Off, Let’s Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong (Oxford University Press, 2025).

Which novel has left a lasting impression on you, and why?
Good Lord! So many. Maybe The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck or any of the novels by James Baldwin. Charles Bukowski.

I dunno. That’s a start anyway.

What’s your favorite quote?
“Take it easy... but take it.” – Woody Guthrie

What’s a memorable music moment that stands out to you?

Jerry Zolten at the Grammy Awards

Assuming this means that I’ve experienced?

Too many. I’ve performed on stage with Bo Diddley and Janis Joplin. I’ve emceed for Ray Charles. I’ve attended the Grammy Awards when the group I helped produce, The Fairfield Four, won! I’ve been on tours with artists from John Fogerty and Lyle Lovett and been in studio sessions with Elvis Costello, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Simon, Levon Helm, and Garth Hudson. I’ve produced concerts with a range of artists from Skip James and John Jackson to the Carter Family, Arlo Guthrie, Otis Rush, Hank Ballard, and on and on it goes.

Jerry Zolten performing with blues singer John Jackson

Which concert will you never forget?
Well, the Janis Joplin concert was certainly unforgettable.

What’s your favorite festival?
New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is a stand-out.

If you could travel anywhere to experience music, where would it be?
Africa and New Orleans.

Besides music, do you have any other hobbies or interests?
I am a collector of all kinds of ephemera relating to American roots music. I collect fine guitars and other musical instruments.

How do you think your friends perceive your taste in music?
Bizarre and out there. Obscure. Outside the mainstream. Unconventional.

How old were you when you "discovered" music, and what made you fall in love with it?
I was in my late single digits (1950s) and I found the exotic rhythms and raw singers and instrumentalists an absolutely essential alternative to bland pop radio.

Jerry Zolten with R&B legend Hank Ballard

What kind of music did you listen to during your teenage years?
I’ve always been grateful that I grew up in parallel with the evolution of R&B as it morphed into rock ’n’ roll. The music of my teen years was heavy on so-called doo-wop, R&B, and out-there jazz. That’s the sort of music I was primarily listening to in my teen years.

Has your taste in music evolved over time?
As rock ’n’ roll progressed and as I got deeper and deeper into discovery through reading and mostly listening, my tastes really expanded.

From vocal groups and jazz, in 1963 I stumbled onto Bob Dylan and that opened a door to “folk” music, but also to early blues because Dylan covered a lot of that on his first albums.

I dove through to Woody Guthrie and Jack Elliot, but especially to Delta blues from Robert Johnson to John Hurt, Son House, Skip James, and the like.

I was slow to accept post-Dylan rock ’n’ roll. I was not a Rolling Stones fan, for example, because I couldn’t see the point of buying a Brit group covering my favorite sides by, say, Chuck Berry or even Buddy Holly whose records I already had.

Same with the Beatles. It wasn’t until they really moved in the direction of their own sound that I got interested. And of course, when I saw that the girls liked them. That helped.

Jerry Zolten playing with Bo Diddley

Do you consider yourself nostalgic?
I do not. To me nostalgia means a longing for things that you experienced in your own past. That is not my motivation, for example, in choosing the music I listen to. In fact, much of it predates my arrival on the planet!

Do you consider yourself vain?
Absolutely.

Are you a maximalist or a minimalist?
Without hesitation, a maximalist.

Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?
I am an introvert who tries to hide it by acting like an extrovert.

How old do you feel mentally?
I’ve been on the planet for a lotta decades but in my head I feel like an adolescent.

What is your relationship with music journalism? How do you keep yourself updated on music?
If by “journalism” you mean reading up in pop music pubs about what’s new and what’s hot and current artist profiles and about what’s happening now, I’d say I do that only marginally.

I do enjoy reading rootsy publications such as Mojo or specialized genre mags from blues to bluegrass.

Do you have any connection to the record industry?
I have no ties to the mainstream record industry beyond contact and friendships with many who do.

Are there people who have influenced your taste in music?
I’m sure there have been, but I’ve no specific people in mind. If I think on it, in an odd way my father did. He was of the WWII generation and what I picked up from him was not a love for any specific type of music but rather a general passion for collecting and listening to records.

The “odd” note is that my father had a narrow purview about what constituted “good” music. He was strictly a classical or big band guy. Anything that wasn’t that, he disapproved of and with a vengeance.

And so we were often enough at loggerheads. It wasn’t that he just didn’t care for the sort of music I liked but more that he hated it, rejected it as no-talent noise, not music at all, and with no hesitancy to let me know.

So in a backhanded way, he steered me more in the direction of following my own passions and tastes.

Jerry Zolten with Pete Seeger

Who is your role model, or a mentor from whom you’ve learned something special?
I don’t know that I’d use the term “role model,” but there were many mentors in my life who through direct interaction encouraged and reinforced who I was and what I valued.

Most of them in the academic or music world but some not, some whose names are known, others not so much. For example, early on at university, the golden age science fiction author William Tenn, who I sought out as a professor but who became a friend.

Or my brilliant advisor Gerald Phillips, who instilled me with confidence to write.

Or legendary folklorist Sam Bayard, who steered me in the direction of valuing music made by salt-of-the-earth people who played and sang purely to survive and get through life.

In the world of music there was Rock Hall of Famer Art Rupe, founder of the pioneering rock ’n’ roll label Specialty Records. Me and Art, two generations older, shared the same hometown, and in his later years in our conversations I learned so much from him about the dawn of rock ’n’ roll.

Then there were artists from the golden age of gospel who I worked with so closely, in some cases spent time with almost as family. Many, but a few who stand out: James S. Hill and Isaac Freeman of the Fairfield Four and Ira Tucker and Howard Carroll of the Dixie Hummingbirds.

From them I learned so much about the music business, the art of vocal harmony, and the perils of surviving and prevailing in a world of virulent racial divide and prejudice.

What inspires you?
Perseverance, know-how, artistry, courage, and behavior that respects the golden rule.

What’s your favorite instrument?
I’m a guitar guy through and through.

What’s the best or most beautiful song for a funeral?
“I’ll Fly Away” always gets me.

Is there a musician or band that you think has received far too little attention?
Not specifically a musician or a band, but rather a genre.

African American gospel music is so foundational to and at the root of American popular music across the board. I suppose its religious connotation has gotten in the way, but in terms of musical artistry the genre remains largely underappreciated.