The collection is arranged alphabetically by interviewee name and is comprised primarily of project documentation: tape information sheets and tape indexes. Additional materials include: an introductory letter to interviewees, sample interview questions, a brochure for the exhibition and its accompanying programs, one interview transcript (Hines), a small number of newsclippings, and one obituary. There are also notes on a meeting with Judge Nathan B. Young, handwritten notes for a few interviews, preliminary research, and research notes taken from the oral history interviews at the National Ragtime and Jazz Archive at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville.

Interviewees:

Ruth Burgett (1915-2009): Interview by Jo Ellen McDonald in 1989, no release (1 tape). Ruth married Arthur Burgett, and African-American man, in Illinois because Missouri law prohibited their marriage. They were both musicians. The couple returned to St. Louis and had six children. Their oldest son, Paul, earned three music degrees from Eastman School of Music and became an educator reaching the position of vice president of the University of Rochester. Tape Information (no data about interview content)

Herron Beckley (1925-2019): Interview by Jo Ellen McDonald, release signed February 7, 1991 (2 tapes). Beckley was a vocalist, active with the Cote Brilliante Presbyterian Church Choir, In Unison Chorus of the St. Louis Symphony, and The Legend Singers. (Tape Information Sheet)

Florence Billups (1921-1995): Interview by Jo Ellen McDonald, release signed October 11, 1989 (1 tape). Wife of Dr. Kenneth Brown Billups (1918-1985). Dr. Billups was educated in the St. Louis Public Schools, graduated from Sumner High School, earned a Bachelor's degree from Lincoln University, and Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees at Northwestern University, 1945-47. He was a music teacher for Sumner High School and founded and supervised the honors music program in the St. Louis Public Schools. Billups served as president of the National Association of Negro Musicians and was perhaps most recognized for directing the Legend Singers, a renowned choral group that featured such artists as Grace Bumbry and Robert McFerrin. He also taught as an adjunct professor of music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in the late 1970s and he even hosted a television show called God’s Musical World. Billups Avenue in the Ville, the neighborhood where he was born, is named in his honor. (Tape Information Sheet)

Leo Chears (1932-2006): Interview by Ernestine Hardge, release signed October 18,1989 (2 tapes). Leo Chears was affectionately known to his listeners as “the man in the red vest,” a nickname given him by one of his main sponsors, Anheuser-Busch. Chears’ name has long been associated with jazz on St. Louis radio, on WBBR, KADI, KSD, WMRY and WSIE, usually holding down a nighttime slot as radio managers paid a pittance to many announcers, especially Negro announcers. When Chears went to work for a radio station, management got more than just an announcer. He used his record library, which consisted of thousands of jazz albums, to supplement the station’s library. (Tape Information Sheet)

David Hines (1942-1991): Interview by Ernestine Hardge on October 17, 1989 (2 tapes). Release signed February 22, 1992. David E. Hines was a St. Louis native, prominent jazz trumpeter, and teacher. He attended Sumner High School and the St. Louis Institute of Music and received a degree in music from the Chicago Conservatory of Music. Hines began his career locally with Oliver Sain and Fontella Bass, and later organized the David Hines Ensemble. He toured nationally and internationally with James Brown, Lena Horne, Ray Charles, Patti LaBelle, and Ike and Tina Turner. He taught music appreciation in the St. Louis and University City public schools. Hines was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1991. [see also David E. Hines Collection (A0703)] (Tape Information Sheet, Programs, Notes, Transcript)

George E. Hudson (1910-1996): Interview by Ruth Burns, release signed September 28, 1989 (1 tape). George Hudson moved to St. Louis from Kansas City to play lead trumpet for the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra in 1934, performing on four recordings for Decca before defecting to Dewey Jackson’s band in 1938. The George Hudson Orchestra debuted in 1942 at Tune Town, with a lineup that included Singleton Palmer. (Later, Hudson would hire a young Clark Terry.) They played shows all over the country, including at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Though Hudson was a great musician, his exerted great influence as an educator at Lovejoy High School in Brooklyn, Illinois, a second career he began in 1950. Within three years, Hudson had organized Lovejoy's first marching band. Since Hudson had been very ill, suffered a stroke and lost a lot of his memory, his wife preferred to be a part of the interview. Her voice is heard throughout the tape. (Tape Information Sheet, Tape Index)

John Clyde “Johnnie” Johnson (1924-2005): Interview by Sister Prince, release signed, October 30, 1989 (1 tape). Johnson was born in Virginia and lived in Detroit and Chicago before he settled in St. Louis in 1952. He assembled a jazz and blues group, the Sir John Trio, with the drummer Ebby Hardy and the saxophonist Alvin Bennett. Johnson needed a last-minute replacement Bennett for an engagement and called a young man named Chuck Berry. Berry added vocals and showmanship to the group. In 2001, Johnson was inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. In 2016, he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for breaking racial barriers in the military, as a Montford Point Marine. Johnson discussed how the Chuck Berry Trio got started, where they played and the records Maybelline, Baby Doll, and Johnnie B. Goode. He also recalled Ike and Tina Turner. (Tape Information Sheet, Tape Index, 6 pg)

Jimmy Jones: Interview by Mary Seematter, release signed October 29, 1989 (1 tape). As a young pianist, Jones toured with Mahalia Jackson. He was active in St. Louis music and co-authored Red, Hot and Blue: St. Louis’ Musical Heritage. Later, Jones played engagements at Westborough Country Club. (Tape Information Sheet)

Walter Lathen (c.1918-2013): Interviewed by Ruth Burns on September 22, 1989. Release signed October 30 and November 14, 1989 (1 tape). Lathen became the director of music at Douglass High School in Webster Groves in 1940 and taught for 40 years. He played bass with the George Hudson Orchestra for 27 years and filled in with nationally known bands that came through St. Louis, such as Count Basie. He met Miles Davis through a teaching colleague when Davis was still a student East St. Louis. This tape contains valuable information pertaining to black music and musicians in St. Louis. He shared about the history of music, the black unions and their dissolution, and explained why many musicians left St. Louis. (Tape Information Sheet, Tape Index for both 22 Sept 1989 interview)

Charles Menees (1916-1993): Interview by Ernestine Hardge on August 30 and September 12, 1989. Consent signed March 1, 1992 (2 tapes). Menees was born in Springfield, Illinois. In his late teens he was the leader of a dance band and also began his newspaper career at the Weekly Gazette in Virginia, Illinois, where he grew up. In 1943 Charlie Menees married Mary Kay Hardesty and they had three children. Menees later went on to work for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 20 years and then McDonnell Douglas as editor of the Airscoop for 16 years. In the mid-1940s, he became St. Louis' first jazz disc jockey, working at WTMV before moving to WIL a short time after. He later did jazz programming for KWMU for several years, building a loyal audience and attracting high ratings. In 1978 he joined KMOX in St. Louis as the host of Jazz Under The Arch, where he remained until his death in 1993. (Tape Information Sheet, Notes on Interviews, Notes on Course at UMSL)

Robert McFerrin (1921-2006): Interview by Ruth Burns and consent signed September 29, 1989 (1 tape) McFerrin was the fourth of eight children of a Baptist minister. As a child, McFerrin was discouraged from singing anything but gospel music, but when he moved to St. Louis in 1936 he auditioned for the choir at Sumner High School and was introduced to classical vocal music. He received an undergraduate degree from Chicago Musical College in 1946, then moved to New York. In 1949, he appeared as Amonasro in Aida with the National Negro Opera Company. In 1953, McFerrin won the Metropolitan Opera national auditions and became the first black male to join the company. McFerrin also sang the role of Porgy (played onscreen by Sidney Poitier) in the soundtrack of the 1959 film, Porgy and Bess. He toured internationally as a recitalist and was also active as a teacher. McFerrin returned to St. Louis in 1973. McFerrin spoke about life as a concert singer. Due to illness he lost his speech and much of his memory and his agent, Dr. Virginia Edwards, was present and spoke during the interview. McFerrin explains that he learned to sign before he learned to speak and he sang on side B of the tape. (Tape Information Sheet, Tape Index 2pg)

Singleton Palmer (1912-1993): Interview by Ernestine Hardge on May 30 and June 12, 1989. Consent signed on March 23, 1992 (2 tapes). Palmer began playing cornet at age 11. In 1928, he began playing tuba and joined Oliver Cobb's Rhythm Kings in 1929. In 1933, Palmer switched to string bass and joined Dewey Jackson, performing with him until 1941. Palmer worked at Scullin Steel, where he joined the company's 45-piece big band, which performed for the employees in the cafeteria during the daily lunch hour. He began performing with the George Hudson Orchestra in 1941. In 1947, he joined Count Basie's 18-piece jazz band, touring for 3 years and recording 11 sides. In 1950, Palmer left Basie's group and started his own band, the Dixieland Six. (Tape Information Sheet, Notes on Interview, Research)

Leroy Pierson (1947-): Interview by Ernestine Hardge on September 12, 1989. Consent signed April 12, 1992 (1 tape). Pierson is a guitarist and vocalist who has recorded, produced, and coordinated the first blues festival in Beloit, Wisconsin. He returned to St. Louis in 1970, taught at Washington University, helped found the Missouri Friends of the Folk Arts, and founded Blackhawk Records. (Tape Information Sheet)

Robert Ray (1946- ): Interview by Jo Ellen McDonald and consent signed October 27, 1989 (1 tape). Ray graduated from Northwestern University in 1968 with a degree in piano performance and spent much of his musical career as a pianist. He got a part-time job accompanying the St. Louis Symphony Chorus and morphed into a successful composer and choral director. He worked to establish the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's outreach program in black churches and founded the SLSO's In Unison Chorus in 1994, leading the community gospel choir in two concerts with the orchestra each year. (Tape Information Sheet)

Willie Mae Ford Smith (1904-1993): Interviewed by Ernestine Hardge on April 20, May 4, and May 16, 1989. Consent signed March 26, 1992 (3 tapes). Smith was the seventh child in a family of 14. Her family moved from Arkansas to Memphis and later to St. Louis. Her father was a devout Baptist who organized Willie Mae and three of her sisters into a family quartet. They sang for the first time in public at the National Baptist Convention of 1922. Smith's sisters eventually retired from the quartet, and Willie Mae decided to pursue a career as a soloist. She began singing professionally in churches in St. Louis and throughout the Midwest. She joined with Dr. Thomas Dorsey and Sallie Martin to set up the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. She was its director for many years and performed an annual solo concert. In the late 1920s, she was ordained as a minister. Smith taught and influenced countless other singers: Myrtle Scott, Joe May, and Mahalia Jackson, but the enormous energy and dedication she brought to organizing, teaching, and nurturing kept her from recording her own singing until she was in her sixties. (Tape Information Sheet; Obituary, 1993)

Dello Thedford (c.1950-): Interview by Jo Ellen McDonald and consent signed November 31, 1989 (1 tape). Thedford taught music at Roosevelt High School and was also a composer, arranger, and orchestral director. (Tape Information Sheet)

Trebor Jay Tichenor (1940-2014): Interview by Sister Prince and consent signed October 23, 1989 (2 tapes). Tichenor was a ragtime historian, teacher and pianist. He talked about his background in relationship to ragtime. (Tape Information Sheet; Tape Index, 16 pages)

Henry “Mule” Townsend (1909-2006): Interview by Sister Prince on October 15, 1989. Consent signed December 7, 1989 (2 tapes). Townsend was a major force in the St. Louis blues. He came to St. Louis at an early age and stayed, unlike several musicians who continued north. Townsend first recorded in 1929 and continued to record in nine decades. [See also Henry Townsend Discography (A0684).] He described his early music life in St. Louis in the late 1920's and he explained that the music life was segregated. (Tape Information Sheet, Tape Index (12 pg), Clipping)

Ron Townson (1933-2001): Interview by Mary Seematter and consent signed October 25, 1989 (1 tape). Townson was born and raised in St Louis where he started singing in church choirs at the age of six. He was choir director as a student at Lincoln University and he placed in the top three voices in local auditions for New York's Metropolitan Opera. Townson joined the Wings Over Jordan gospel choir and toured with Dorothy Dandridge and Nat "King" Cole. In 1957, Townson lived in Los Angeles where he formed the a cappella Celestial Choir of 35 Voices and worked as part of the Ray Charles Revue. In 1965, he set up the Versatiles with childhood friend LaMont McLemore, bringing in Billy Davis, Marilyn McCoo and Florence LaRue. The group soon changed their name to The Fifth Dimension. (Interview Questions, Tape Information Sheet)

Jeanne Trevor ( - ): Interview by Sister Prince and consent signed October 6, 1989 (2 tapes) Trevor's musical background begin as a singer of classical music but later changed to jazz. She came to St Louis in the 1960’s via New York and Los Angeles and became a staple to the then vibrant Gaslight Square. She fell in love with the city and remained. She has performed with the St. Louis Symphony, has had roles at The Muny, and even had a radio show. In 2008, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Grand Center’s Visionary Awards. (Tape Information Sheet; Tape Index, 9 pg; Clipping, 1992)