2016 Winners: ARSC Awards for Excellence
The Association for Recorded Sound Collections is pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 ARSC Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. Begun in 1991, the awards are presented to authors and publishers of books, articles, or extensive recording liner notes to recognize those publishing the very best work today in recorded sound research. In giving these awards, ARSC recognizes the contributions of these individuals and aims to encourage others to emulate their high standards and to promote readership of their work. Two awards are presented annually in each category, for Best History and Best Discography, and several others are acknowledged with Certificates of Merit. Awards are presented to both the authors and publishers of winning publications.
All of the honorees have now been notified, and certificates and one year memberships to ARSC are being produced and distributed. The winners will also be acknowledged at the awards ceremony at the ARSC national conference in San Antonio, Texas, May 10-13, 2017.
[ Best Research in Recorded Rock Music ]
Best History Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll by Peter Guralnick (Little, Brown & Company) |
Certificate of Merit Beatles Gear by Andy Babiuk (Hal Leonard) |
Certificate of Merit Everybody's Heard about the Bird: The True Story of 1960s Rock 'n' Roll in Minnesota by Rick Shefchik (University of Minnesota Press) |
[ Best Research in Recorded Popular Music ]
Best History
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Best Discography L'Argus DALIDA: Discographie Mondiale et Cotations by Daniel Lesueur (InfoDisc) |
Certificate of Merit The Underground Is Massive: How Electronic Dance Music Conquered America by Michaelangelo Matos (Dey Street Books) |
[ Best Historical Research in Recorded Jazz ]
Best History Swingin' on Central Avenue: African-American Jazz in Los Angeles by Peter Vacher (Rowman & LLittlefield) |
Best Discography Bobby Hackett: His Life in Music by George Hulme and Bert Whyatt (Hardinge Simpole) |
Certificate of Merit Jazz Tales from Jazz Legends: Oral Histories from the Fillius Jazz Archive at Hamilton College by Monk Rowe, with Romy Britell (Richard W. Couper Press) |
Certificate of Merit The Long Shadow of the Little Giant: The Life, Work and Legacy of Tubby Hayes by Simon Spilett (Equinox Press) |
[ Best Research in Recorded Country Music ]
Best History Mac Wiseman: All My Memories Fit For Print by Walt Trott (Nova Books) |
Best Discography The Music of the Stanley Brothers by Gary B. Reid (University of Illinois Press) |
Certificate of Merit Bluegrass in Baltimore by Tim Newby (McFarland Press) |
Certificate of Merit West Virginia's Traditional Country Music by Ivan M. Tribe and Jacob L. Bapst (Arcadia Press) |
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[ Best Historical Research in Recorded Folk or World Music ]
Best History Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946 by James P. Leary (University of Wisconsin Press and Dust to Digital, in collaboration with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Association for Cultural Equity/Alan Lomax Archive) |
Certificate of Merit Ola Belle Reed and Southern Mountain Music on the Mason-Dixon Line by Clifford Murphy (Dust-to-Digital) |
Certificate of Merit Hear My Sad Story: The True Tales That Inspired "Stagolee," "John Henry," and Other Traditional American Folk Songs by Richard Polenberg (Cornell University Press) |
[ Best Historical Research in Recorded Blues, Gospel, Soul, or R&B ]
Best History Say No to the Devil: The Life and Musical Genius of Rev. Gary Davis by Ian Zack (University of Chicago Press) |
Certificate of Merit Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South by Charles L. Hughes (University of North Carolina Press) |
Certificate of Merit A City Called Heaven: Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music by Robert Marovich (University of Illinois Press) |
Certificate of Merit Early Blues: The First Stars of the Blues Guitar by Jas Obrecht (University of Minnesota Press) |
[ Best Historical Research in Recorded Classical Music ]
Best History Svetik: A Family Memoir of Sviatoslav Richter by Walter Moskalew (Boydell and Brewer) |
Best Discography The Philadelphia Orchestra: An Annotated Discography by Richard A. Kaplan (Rowman & Littlefield) |
Certificate of Merit Joseph Holbrooke: Composer, Critic, and Musical Patriot by Paul Watt and Anne-Marie Forbes (Rowman & Littlefield) |
[ Best Historical Research on General Recording Topics ]
Best History How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt (Viking/Penguin) |
Certificate of Merit Noise Uprising: The Audiopolitics of a World Musical Revolution by Michael Denning (Verso) |
Certificate of Merit The Great British Recording Studios by Howard Massey (Hal Leonard) |
Certificate of Merit Sounding the Color Line: Music and Race in the Southern Imagination by Erich Nunn (University of Georgia Press) |
[ Best Historical Research in Record Labels ]
Best History Popkiss: The Life and Afterlife of Sarah Records by Michael White (Bloomsbury Academic) |
For more information, please contact Roberta Freund Schwartz (University of Kansas).
Winners are chosen by a committee consisting of three elected judges representing specific fields of study, two judges- at-large, the review editor of the ARSC Journal and the President of ARSC. The 2016 ARSC Awards Committee consists of the following: Dan Morgenstern (Jazz Music Judge); Jon Samuels (Classical Music Judge); Matthew Barton (Popular Music Judge); Cary Ginnell (Judge-At-Large); Richard Spottswood (Judge-at-Large); James Farrington (Book Review Editor, ARSC Journal); Patrick Feaster (ARSC President); David N. "Uncle Dave" Lewis (Awards Committee Co-Chair), and Roberta Freund Schwartz (Awards Committee Co-Chair).
