All roads lead to Mudcat. This evening I pulled my Dad's cassette tape copy of an album Bad Men, Heroes and Pirate Songs ELK-129 and started trying to track down an original recording. This one has pops and crackles. I got to Joe's thread about Elektra and was able to connect the dots for this album. And I ordered the book Don recommends (it is frighteningly easy to order through Bookfinder.com, especially if you've used the Google checkout and it kept your credit card info. Click and it's yours!)

I think he recorded borrowed albums from people he knew or that he got through the library where he was a reference librarian. This was in the interest of learning the songs and having access to different versions. (Seattle's Susy McAleer died last month - she and Dad - John Dwyer (1921-1997) - were partners in crime when it came to learning various versions of songs, of trying to find the earliest versions they could.)

I have (apparently) many cassette copies of Elektra albums that Dad couldn't buy, and I'd like to track some of them down, to have the actual albums instead of copies. I'll start checking the various online sites. I know how to find used books - and it seems to me that some of them have used LPs also. Where do some of you start your search to find really old albums like this?

SRS