[ARSCLIST] The David Hummel Collection or "Donate your A.L. Webber Lps to an archive now!

[Steve Ramm <Stevramm@xxxxxxx>]

Someone JUST sent me this from back in June. Thought I'd share if you  hadn't 
seen.
 
Problem is that- based on this article - folks are going to want to donate  
their copies of "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Damn Yankees" to the Library of  
Congress!
 
Steve Ramm
 
 
Record-Eagle com 06/09/2006
 
 
A little something extra from the extra 
Man donates his renowned library of recordings 
BY BOB DARROW 
_bdarrow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:bdarrow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)  
Record-Eagle/Douglas  Tesner 
Just a portion of David Hummel’s huge recording  collection is pictured here. 
TRAVERSE CITY — If walls could talk, David Hummel's would sing show  tunes. 
If walls could breathe, they'd gasp for air in Hummel's Traverse City home,  
where the rooms are lined with shelves jammed with a vast collection of 
American  musicals performed during the last half-century. 
Six thousand record albums. Thirty-five hundred compact discs. Five thousand  
tapes, on both reel and cassette. 
Hundreds of reference books, including one Hummel authored himself. Thousands 
 of playbills from Broadway shows. 
"I had to have everything show-related," said Hummel, a former recording  
engineer and consultant who recently decided to give it all away. 
By Tuesday afternoon, it'll all be gone, donated to the Library of Congress — 
 from recordings of hits like "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Damn Yankees," to 
 obscure flops like the Gene Kelly-produced "Clownaround," that sit amid 
stacks  that wrap around corners and into bedrooms. 
It's simply not enough to call Hummel a collector or hobbyist. It's more of a 
 way of life for someone who acted as an extra in musical productions in the  
1950s. So keen is his passion that a curator at America's official library 
calls  him a "highly-recognized expert." 
Musical composer Stephen Sondheim, whose credits include classics like "West  
Side Story" and "Sweeney Todd," characterized Hummel's recordings collection 
as  "perhaps the most complete and accurate catalog of the American musical 
theater  currently, or perhaps ever, in existence." 
Hummel never had his musical cache appraised. He intended to donate the  
recordings to the Library of Congress upon his death, but recently moved up the  
giveaway date. 
"I just decided I'd like to see it happen," Hummel, 71, said. "I'm not really 
 listening to it that much anymore." 
On Tuesday Denoyer Brothers Moving & Storage will come to Hummel's home,  
carefully box his thousands of recordings and send them to a Washington, D.C.  
storage facility. 
>From there, the collection eventually will make its way to the Library of  
Congress' new state-of-the-art National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in  
Culpeper, Va. The records will be digitized so researchers can listen to them  
remotely. 
Not only did the Library of Congress accept Hummel's donation — now  
officially referred to as the "David G. Hummel American Musical Theatre  Collection" — 
the staff is excited to have it, said Librarian of Congress James  
Billington, who in a letter thanked Hummel on behalf of the nation.  
It's not often the library receives so complete a collection from an expert  
in his field, said Mary Bucknum, the library's sound-recording curator. 
"Mr. Hummel's collection is quite spectacular," Bucknum said. "He's giving us 
 many unique pieces we didn't already have." 
Of particular value is Hummel's collection of bootleg recordings of Broadway  
performances, often made by someone with a tape recorder in the first row. 
Many  of those recordings are the lone copies in existence; some composers asked 
 Hummel to send them copies of shows even they don't possess. 
Hummel owns nearly every LP related to musical comedy ever produced, and  
amassed the collection sifting through mom-and-pop record stores around the  
state and nation. 
"Back in the day, going through the bins was so much fun. It was amazing the  
stuff you would find," he said. "Winning a bid on eBay just doesn't  
compare." 
Hummel lost interest in collecting as Broadway began to cater to more  
serious, elaborate productions. 
"The fun went out of it," he said. 
But there is one current Broadway hit he'd like to see: "The Drowsy  
Chaperone," an old-fashioned comedy about a die-hard musical fan and his record  
collection. 
That one, Hummel said, sounds right up his  alley.