Richard K. Spottswood

Richard K. Spottswood

Richard K. "Dick" Spottswood (born April 17, 1937) is a musicologist and author from Maryland who has catalogued and been responsible for the reissue of many thousands of recordings of vernacular music in the United States. He earned his B.A. from the University of Maryland in 1960, and his Master's degree in Library Science from Catholic University in 1962. The title of his Master's thesis was A catalog of American folk music on commercial recordings at the Library of Congress, 1923-1940 LCCN 77-25591. His masterwork, Ethnic Music on Records: A Discography of Ethnic Recordings Produced in the United States, 1893-1942 (University of Illinois Press, 1990) LCCN 89-20526, is a nine-volume listing of sound recordings by minority groups issued in the U.S. until 1942. He also edited and annotated the 15-volume LP series Folk Music in America for the Library of Congress, and contributed to books including Country Music Sources: A Biblio-Discography of Commercially Recorded Traditional Music LCCN 2002-22360 and Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 LCCN 2003-1102.

Spottswood has contributed to hundreds of reissue recordings issued by companies like Arhoolie, Rounder, Herwin, Yazoo, Document, Biograph, Revenant and Dust-to-Digital, and his own Melodeon and Piedmont labels, illuminating and making available exceptional and nearly-forgotten jewels of American vernacular music for generations to come, and influencing musicologists and musicians. John Fahey, in his book How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life, credited a record canvassing trip with Spottswood, and the Bill Monroe record "Blue Yodel Number Seven" which Spottswood played him subsequently, with altering the course of his life.

Although he has relocated to Florida, he continues to host a weekly two-hour radio program called "The Dick Spottswood Show", which he has jokingly referred to as the Obsolete Music Hour, on Washington D.C. radio station WAMU. He is an expert on bluegrass music (having co-founded Bluegrass Unlimited magazine in 1966) and on the history of recorded ethnic music of the early 20th century generally. Spottswood is a founding member of The Association for Recorded Sound Collections, and was awarded their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. On October 1, 2009, The International Bluegrass Music Association presented Spottswood with their Distinguished Service Award in Nashville, Tennessee.