This came two minutes 14 seconds into "After You've Gone," a 1931 jazz tune spinning on his turntable. On cue, the song swung up-tempo, as did Bussard. With a fiddle now whining and whistling from the big speaker in the corner, his right hand sliced an invisible bow back and forth through the air. He grinned, grimaced and wagged that tongue.
When not bopping in his basement, Bussard often can be found at the Barbara Fritchie Restaurant. He's there every day for breakfast. He always sits near the kitchen door in case a gunman comes in ("you never know"), eats bacon and eggs, and chats up the waitresses. One manager rolled her eyes good-naturedly and said, "Joe, you ain't right."
Over breakfast he related how his life of collecting began in 1947 when, at age 11, he walked into a record store looking for Jimmie Rodgers music. Told that the country singer's records had been discontinued, young Joe began knocking on doors in Frederick begging for old Rodgers records.
He scored a couple, along with plenty of records featuring other artists. He never stopped collecting. By selling his family's farm supply business, he was able to devote his attention to collecting without the distraction of having to earn a living. (It helped that his wife, Esther, who died in 1999, continued to work as a hairstylist.)
Music consumed him in other ways: He formed Jolly Joe's Jug Band - he played the guitar, banjo and jug - and cut old-style music on his own label, Fonotone Records.
Mostly he collected, racing against time as old 78s -- forerunners to vinyl LPs - were junked, turned into wall decorations or hurled through the air by kids. Often the harsh needles from windup Victrolas had badly scratched the records, but he found many in pristine shape, such as on a 1960s trip to the coal camps of Bluefield, Va.
He had reached the last house in one row when he peered down a ravine. There sat one more house. An elderly woman answered his knock and invited him inside. In the phonograph case he spotted what he had long sought: "Hen Party Blues" by the Dixieland Jug Blowers. He also found Sweet Papa Stovepipe's "All Birds Look Like Chicken to Me." For the set he gave her $100, far more than she asked.
In this way he accumulated his 25,000 records, three-plus minutes per side. To hear it all would require a month of nonstop playing. He also has a few thousand LPs and 45-rpm records. Other collectors have superior stashes in one genre - early country, say - but Bussard's runs the gamut. "There's one or two people I can think of in the entire world who have done that," Ledbetter said. "It's one of the top record collections in the world."
