"FolkLib Index: Wisconsin Discography"
    - Pre-publication Notes
      (Recordings by Wisconsin resident musicians 1948-2005)

(last updated .01-05-2017)

Table of Contents

      These are the "Pre-publication Notes" in my forthcoming book, (ca. 2028), FolkLib Index: Wisconsin Discography. These notes are linked to from various working draft pages of the book clarifying information found on those pages. The information on this page may or may not become part of the book. This page, as it appears here, will not appear in the book.

Topics covered on this page, and questions about the book answered:
1) What does the "{A}" and other similar discography notations mean?
2) How many recordings are listed on this site?
3) "Selected Discography" vs. "Complete Discography" defined.
4) Deleted Chapter 14. "Song Titles on 45's Index".
5) Why won't Pop/Rock recordings be listed?
6) Previously announced chapters that will not appear in the book. - new 05-08-2004
7) How big is the book going to be? - new 05-08-2004
8) Notes on URL longevity - new 01-05-2005
9) Who will and will not be listed in the book, clarified. - new 01-22-2005
10) Why is 1948 the starting point of the book? - new 01-22-2005
11) Deleted "Bibliography (Periodicals)" chapter. - new 02-11-2005
12) How you can assist (indirectly) in the cost of writing this book. - new 03-12-2005
13) Changed documentation of anonymous musicians. - new 08-31-2005
14) When will the book be published? - new 05-08-2006
14a) When will the book be published (update #1)? - new 09-14-2006
14b) When will the book be published (update #2)? - new 01-02-2007
14c) When will the book be published (update #3)? - new 12-19-2007
15) New chapter added, "Desiderata". - new 08-06-2006
16) Do you have a publisher, agent or editor? - 12-10-2006

{A} = I own a personal copy of this (recording/book/periodical)
      "{A}" will not be mentioned for any individual item in the book, although it is and will continue to be used on this Web site. Its only pre-publication purpose on "working draft" pages is to serve as a want list of what I need, and also to help prevent purchasing duplicates of things that I can't remember I already have (a senility factor). I still have several hundred titles not written up yet, so the absence of "{A}" by a listed recording/book, and/or the fact a title is not listed, does not necessarily mean I don't have it. For other discography "ownership" codes, {C}, {I}, {AD}, etc., see the library page. Please write if you know details about similar recordings, or missing or incorrect information about those listed on the Wisconsin Discographies pages.
      Please note: I am not a library.   I am just a Folk Music and Wisconsin Music fan, so I cannot accept requests for photocopies of articles or any other type of research in my personal collection of books and periodicals. Check with your local library for public sources of these resources.
      For trivia buffs, or for those curious to watch the week by week growth of the book, here are the running totals that used to be listed at Wisconsin Discographies, and what the numbers meant.

-- Dec 19, 2007 2,154/1,167/626/78/66/124
    (this is no longer being maintained, see the 4-09-2010 note below)
1) 2,154 - number of titles already listed on-line in the Index (309 + 1,845)
2) 1,167 - number of titles copied to my off-line Inventory page (there are no titles in #2 that are not in #1)
3) 626 - number of artists/groups in the Inventory
4) 78 - number of Index pages with at least one title
5) 66 - number of #4 pages completely added to the Inventory
6) 124 - number of incomplete writeups to be completed later (included in #1 and #2)
      Effective 03-02-2002, I decided I needed to get the several hundred unlisted titles on-line as fast as I could. The only way is to add a short, but incomplete, entry now with only the Release Date, Title and Catalog # for each recording. The rest of the information usually included with each on-line title entry will be added before the book is published in 2006. However, at the moment, I don't know how soon before then the following details will be added for the incomplete entries: record label, recording studio, recording technicians, session player list (if any), and contact information (if it is printed in the liner notes).
      Please write if you live in the Oshkosh area and would like to assist in this book project by volunteering some time for key entry of recording details from LP, cassette and CD liner notes.
      4-09-2010: If you actually read this page, you may have noticed the totals above haven't changed in a long time. As it was a duplication of effort, the off-line inventory is no longer being updated. If I ever do publish, which seems more and more unlikely, the primary source of the book would be the recordings of all the musicians listed on the Wisconsin Discographies and Wisconsin Session Work Discography pages. The current number of recordings documented publicly on this site, over 3,000 , is detailed in the Totals section of the "Wisconsin Discographies" page.

"Selected Discography" vs. "Complete Discography" lists:
      The research phase in creating the Discography, Bibliography and other information lists in this book will strive for completeness. Personally, every time I see a "Selected" list, I wish I had a copy of the "Complete" list from which each entry was chosen by the author. Unfortunately, most authors do not state where that "Complete" list can be found. Readers don't need to worry about this frustrating problem in this book. I will let readers select for themselves what they think is important to them from all the information I know. If it exists, and I know about it, and it isn't listed anywhere else in print, it will be listed here.
      Additionally, I think it is ludicrous when authors publish books which are supposed to be a complete biography of a particular musician, and they include ONLY a "Selected Discography" of that artist. I feel an extreme diservice has been done to the reader by not including every recording by that artist the authors know to exist!  
Chapter 14. "Song Titles on 45's Index"
      A chapter separate from the "Album Titles Index" resulted from the discovery that there are more 45's by Wisconsin artists unlisted anywhere else than I realized at first. The acquisition of a collection of almost 200 Polka 45's made this fact very clear.
      09-28-2004 Note: I have decided not to include 45's. Up until now I had considered listing them, but in the three years allocated for book research, I just cannot cover 45's adequately. For a general example, I know of only about 200 45's by Wisconsin Polka bands that have never been listed in detail in a book before, out of the literally thousands of them that probably exist. For a specific example, according to Gary Myers' "Cuca Discography", there are over 300 non-Rock singles on that label alone, and I am aware of 37 other labels that released 45's by one or more Wisconsin Polka bands. Some 45's are listed on this Web site and may appear in a future book, but not this one. For those artists who have released 45's that I know about, a footnote will appear in their book entry referring readers to this Web site for those titles. Every artist with at least one 45 documented on this Web site so far is listed on the Wisconsin 45's Index (by Artist) page.
Recordings by Pop and Rock musicians will not be listed in this book
      Why Not?! - Because every multiple artist Wisconsin discography in print known to this author already has documented Pop and Rock musician's recordings. There is no known discography in print that covers any other existing musical genre. I feel that by spending three years researching recordings in the genres that no one has ever written about before, I just might be able to do an adequate job of covering those genres to some degree of completeness. It would take this one author, working alone, probably another three or more years beyond that to even partially document the enormous amount of Wisconsin Pop and Rock recordings that exist.
      This conclusion was reached sitting in the audience at the 23rd Annual WAMI Awards Show on 4-28-2003 at the Northern Lights Theater in Milwaukee, the first such show I had attended. You should understand that I have been seriously searching for Wisconsin recordings in all genres for about five years. This search became a full-time task when work was started on this book in November 2002. Looking at the 175 award nominees in the Show program booklet, not counting those who were not musicians (radio stations, recording studios, etc.), as well as every name I was already familiar with, that left 105 recording artists, almost all of them Pop and Rock musicians, that I had never heard of before that night! Multiplying that by a comparable number of nominees in the previous 22 years of WAMI awards, I was completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the task of even attempting to track down every recording by every Pop and Rock musician in the state that had not been documented before, as well as every other known recording in every other known genre.
      For awhile, I even considered giving up the entire task which on that night suddenly became clearly impossible for one lone author. As that idea was unacceptable, I had to decide what I could reasonably accomplish during the next three years of research. By leaving the listing of Pop and Rock recordings to other authors, I feel that I can reasonably cover everything else.
      Musical Genre recordings which will NOT be listed
      Musical Genre recordings which WILL be listed
      09-16-2004 Note: As a result of questions that have come up, I feel that I need to clarify what I mean by "Pop/Rock" artists. As this Folk Music and Public Radio fan has not listened to Top-40 radio or MTV type television since the late 1980's, I am unable to differentiate between some of the various types of Pop/Rock genres listed. For example, I have no clue what Ska, Industrial and Techno recordings sound like. I can only identify such recordings by a process of elimination. If I listen to a recording, and I can't recognize it as one of the NON-Pop/Rock genres listed, I label it as Pop/Rock. I am not qualified to do otherwise. That is why I ask the reader's assistance at the top of the Wisconsin Pop and Rock Musicians page to write me if someone I have placed on that Pop/Rock page, does not belong there. The book will not list any recordings by anyone on that page.  
"Previously announced chapters that will not appear in the book"
      14. Song Titles on 45's Index (see above)
      16. Music Stores Index - by city
      17. Recording Studios Index - by city
05-08-2004: After a year and a half spent in research for the book it is likely that these chapters will not appear in print. 1) The addresses change too frequently to warrant listing in a permanent book. They can best be maintained on this Web site. 2) There just may not be room to list them (see the following "How big?" section). So these chapters will not be included in the book unless someone can convince me that this street address/telephone number information, which would start becoming obsolete as soon as the book went off to the printer, would be of some long-term use somehow.

      11. Bibliography (Periodicals) - Articles/Reviews, by artist/group and date
02-11-2005: In the time left before publication, I will not have time to adequately expand this chapter to the extent that it was originally intended. I have over a thousand issues of just magazines I have subscribed to, or have purchased runs of, that I cannot index, and also at the same time do the best job possible of tracking down and documenting every 1948-2005 non-Pop/Rock recording that exists.
    Acoustic Guitar 1995-99, Acoustic Musician 1994-99, ARSC Journal 1968-, Bluegrass Music News (SPBGMA), Bluegrass Music Profiles 2004-, Bluegrass Unlimited 1996-, Blues Revue Quarterly 1991-98, Current Biography Yearbook 1992-97, The Devil's Box 1993-00, Dirty Linen 1988-2010 R.I.P. Down Beat 1978-92, Fingerstyle Guitar 1993-, Goldmine 1994-, Guitar Player, The Leak 1994-97, Old-Time Herald 1991-, Performing Songwriter 1993-2009 R.I.P., Sing Out! 1993-, Women in Bluegrass Bulletin 1994-, and the Wisconsin specific ones, Fireball Mail 1984-, Maximum Ink, Midwest Folk 2003-05, Night Sites & Sounds, Rick's Cafe 2003-2007, The Scene (aka The Valley Scene) 1994-, Tell it Like it is 1990-.

"How big is the book going to be?"
      05-08-2004: At this time, I have no idea. The potential size of this book could well be larger than is reasonable for a single book. Decisions will have to be made about who would buy a six hundred to a thousand page book. It may be that it will have to be published as more than one book. A complete alphabetical list spread over multiple volumes would still require everyone to buy all the volumes. Other options could be a) chronological, which is unlikely because there are so many albums that I cannot determine when they were released, or b) by genre ... most likely, for example, 1) Folk / Blues / Bluegrass / Cajun / Zydeco / Celtic / Singer Songwriter / Native American Indian, 2) Classical / Opera / solo instrumentalists / Jazz / Country, 3) Gospel / Contemporary Christian / Churches / Schools, 4) Big Bands / Polka / Barbershop, 5) or some other grouping yet to be determined. The final groupings would be a factor of "similar" types of music and the number of recordings to be listed for each genre.
      If the book is NOT published in one volume, no matter how it is divided up, there will be a separate alphabetical "Master Index" book which will list where the entry for every musician or group can be found in another book. Please write if you have any thoughts on how it should be published. In other words, what kind of book would you be most willing to purchase?
"Notes on URL longevity"
From Chapter v: URL = Universal Resource Locator (i.e. a Web site's address, like http://www.folklib.net/)
      01-05-2005: For those Pop/Rock musicians whose recordings are not listed in this book, or in any other book (as of 2006), all recordings known to me are listed on this Web site, the "FolkLib Index". Their discography can be found at the exact URL which will be included with their entry in this book. For anyone familiar with the World Wide Web, URL's have a limited life-time. They come and go based on a number of things. Very few of the URL's linked to when I started this Web site in 1995 still exist. The temporary nature of a URL is a current fact of life. With only two exceptions listed in this and the following paragraphs, the only other URL's mentioned in this book will be to this Web site, for which I am responsible. Plans are for the site to remain active, and the URL's in the book to remain valid, as long as I am alive. Inquiries are being made as to how it can remain as an unmaintained historical site after that. If that does not work out as planned, URL's in the book can be searched for in The Internet Archive (aka the Wayback Machine), http://www.archive.org/ , a mammoth site that has been "building a digital library of Internet sites" (i.e., backing up the Web) since 1996. This archive can be searched by known URL only. It cannot be searched for specific content on the Web pages it has backed up. If you are reading this book in the future, and this Web site no longer exists, backups of each listed URL can be found in The Internet Archive.
      Note that Internet Archive backups of my personal domain, www.folklib.net , only go back to July 2000 when it was first created. Prior to that, this Web site existed at http://www.execpc.com/~henkle/fbindex/fbindex.html . Although this site went on-line 11-25-1995, they did not start backing it up until 1999. All versions of this Web site's pages before then are permanently lost.
Will I be listed in the book even if I have only appeared on unlisted Pop/Rock recordings?
      01-22-2005: If you appear on any recording I know about as of 1-01-2006 that was released between 1948 and 12-31-2005 and you lived in Wisconsin at some time during that period, you will be listed. The only exceptions will be members of large orchestras and choruses, unless they are specifically named soloists. Assuming I know your real first and last names, if you are a solo artist, or a member of a group that has about 10 or fewer members, you will be listed, no matter what type of music you perform. Every session player on a listed recording who is not a regular member of the named group will be listed, no matter how many other non-member session players appeared. If you are a Pop/Rock musician, your recordings I know about will be listed on this Web site, but not in the book,
Why is 1948 the starting point of the book?
      01-22-2005: No 78 rpm records will be listed in the book, so the next available commercial type of recording was the LP. The very first LP was released in 1948, so that is my starting point. Quoting, with permission, from the TimeLine of Sound and Broadcast Technology, by The Media Management Group:
"1948 - The commercial 33 1/3 LP (Long Playing) microgroove (1-mil) disc is introduced by Dr. Peter Goldmark of Columbia Records; the first LP disk is released; it is 10" Columbia record #4001 performed by classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin."
      If I find it out before the book goes to press in late 2006 or early 2007, I will include the information, but at this time I do not know when the very first LP was released by a musician from Wisconsin. If a "1st Wisconsin LP" release year gets verified and agreed upon by a number of scholarly sources, I will change the current subtitle of the book,
    (Recordings by Wisconsin resident musicians 1948-2005)
to reflect that year. Possible candidates I know about:
    1949 - Woody Herman: Sequence in Jazz (RCA Victor LP: CL-6026)
    1949 - Woody Herman: Dance Parade (RCA Victor LP: CL-6049)
How you can assist (indirectly) in the cost of writing this book.
      03-12-2005: I do not foresee that I will ever sell anything directly to any consumer from this Web site, including the book when it comes out. Starting in late 2006 or early 2007 after the book is published, I will list on the Where can I buy it? page, book dealers I know about that stock it, both on-line, and in physical book stores. However, starting in November 2004, as a new member of its "Affiliate Program", I receive a commission from every recording you purchase within 12 hours after clicking on any artist/group link at this domain labeled "CD Baby". This helps the artists in a BIG! way, plus it helps in a small way to recover the cost of the literally hundreds of recordings I have purchased that I would not have purchased if I weren't writing the book. For just one example, I found one recording in the Oshkosh Public Library by a non-Folk Wisconsin artist I really liked. Under normal circumstances, I would have bought just that CD. However, because they needed to be written up in detail for the book, I bought all 12 CD's the artist has released.
    Please note: This commission comes out of CD Baby's profits and not out of any payments sent to the artist.
    As Folk and Celtic Music, Acoustic Blues, Bluegrass and solo guitar instrumentalists have been my primary musical interest since 1958, I have purchased every local Wisconsin recording in these genres I have found since around 1991, and will continue to do so after the book is finished. However, as of 1-01-2006, when research for the book ends, so will large purchases of Barbershop, Big Band, Classical, Contemporary Christian, Country, Electric Blues, Gospel, Jazz, and Polka recordings.
Changed documentation of anonymous musicians.
      8-31-2005: As a self-appointed volunteer historian, my responsibility is to document musicians as best I can. A case in point, birth names vs. nicknames/stage names, whether legally changed or not. If I discover for a fact that a Wisconsin musician's name is really not their birth name, as a service to genealogical researchers who might futilely attempt to trace their family tree based on a nickname, I will document that fact on this Web site and in my book. As a service to musicians whose birth name is a secret, I will change how I was handling anonymous musicians. For the moment, my previous method is described at, Anonymous Recording Artists. As I have time, I will update my site and the list of musicians with an unknown birth name, by adding a link from their non-birth name to each band they belong to, and a link from the band to their non-birth name. All non-birth names will be listed together in the book separately from the other artists who will be listed alphabetically by their birth last name, and any session work they have done that I know about will not be listed on this Web site or the book.
When will the book be published?
      5-08-2006: Stay tuned ... Spring / Summer 2007? ... who knows? I don't. When I started this project, I thought it would be ready by the end of 2006, but that is not going to happen. When my latest Internet Provider powered off its VMS server and deleted my account 12-15-2005 and access to the EVE/TPU Editor and the OpenVMS Operating System it runs under, the effect on this Web site and the book was devastating. Searches for a new IP with a VMS account accessible via Telnet have proved fruitless. Unfortunately, all IP's with VMS now require SSH login access to all accounts, but as EVE/TPU cannot function under anything except Telnet, that is not an option. All my methods used to maintain web pages since 1994, sorting, global edits and DCL programming, disappeared. Using the UNIX "Joe" editor based around 1980's WordStar commands, (ctrl/KF, etc.), has allowed mini edits at about one twentieth the speed of EVE/TPU functionality. Unless I can find a VMS/Telnet login account, a realistic publication date is really undefinable at this time. Even Summer 2007 might not be possible. As I will be 65 this September, I may run out of life before the book is done. Who knows? Life has no guarantee.
When will the book be published (update #1)?
      9-14-2006: Stay tuned ... Summer / Fall 2007? It took about eight months to find a new VMS account where I could once again fully update my site and resume making real progress on the book. Three years were spent during the major research phase (11/2002 - 12-31-2005), and it may take two years to write up the probably over 2,000 new and used Wisconsin recordings added to my personal collection which forms the basis for the book. Over 100 new books were also acquired since 11/2002, most of which have at least some, and in a few cases, a lot of Wisconsin musical information relevant to the book. As someone once said (who?), it will take however long it takes.
When will the book be published (update #2)?
      01-02-2007: ... Spring / Summer 2009? Due to the amount of work involved in my new position as Historian on the Board of Directors of the Green Apple Folk Music Society in Appleton, work on the book has basically stopped until further notice. I am in the process of creating at least a dozen new pages of Historical material directly and indirectly related to Green Apple. I'm not capable of working on two major projects at the same time.
When will the book be published (update #3)?
      12-19-2007: ... 2028? (possibly Never!) Starting on 12-15-2005, when I lost my VMS editing account, through losing my DSL access thanks to AT&T and Milwaukee PC and had to suffer through a year of Dial Up, through the untold hours spent on Green Apple Board member duties and creating specific Green Apple Web pages, through today when, for the first time in 2 years, I have finally gotten the Wisconsin Discographies page updated to the point where I can get an accurate total of the number of Wisconsin album titles installed on this site. Therefore between 12-15-2005 to 12-19-2007 I now know that about 200 new titles were added to the site. At this same rate of progress (100 titles per year), with an estimated 2,000 more titles that need to be written up, it will take about 20 more years of adding titles until I will have a draft ready to submit to a publisher. Assuming I live that long, not guaranteed, I will be 86 years old in 2028. It looks more and more likely that the book will never be published.
New chapter added, "Desiderata".
      08-06-2006: In addition to the stated purposes of the book from the beginning, I felt I needed to put down what I would like to see result from this book being published, such as publications that do not exist today, and other future dreams I have that might come to pass once readers have seen the tremendous wealth of Wisconsin non-Pop/Rock recorded music that, until this book, has never been mentioned in print before.
Do you have a publisher, agent or editor?
      12-10-2006: No, not yet, but I am starting to look for them. I am reading a number of books about the process of getting published. They are listed on a new page, Getting Published Bibliography.

URL: http://www.folklib.net/book/wi_book99.shtml
Please send additions and/or corrections to Doug Henkle: henkle@pobox.com
P.O. Box 331, Ripon, WI 54971-0331

Copyright © 2003-2017 Douglas H. Henkle, All Rights Reserved.