Category: Database Updates

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New Editions to the Database 4/27/25

Posted on by Frank The Drifter

This past month I’ve been focusing on trying to input a few things every day to the database. It takes a while because my process keeps getting more complicated. At first it was just the record and pics, and then it was the record with *all* the information on it (runout etchings, pressing plants, publishers…), and now it’s the record with all the info with pictures *and* audio. It takes a while, but I think it’s worth it to be able to browse the database, find a cool record, and listen to it right there!

First up is a great double instrumental single out of Concord Arkansas on Rimrock Records. As far as I can tell the Shack Creek Bluegrass Boys didn’t release anything else. There’s another version of this 45 with a black label and picture sleeve, but the same music.

Listen to it here: https://dollarcountry.org/items/show/28075

Next I have three singles from sister and brother Olabelle Reed and Alex Campbell featuring Deacon Brumfield and the New River Boys. Olabelle and Alex released a ton of material together on their own label as well as two LPs on Starday and some other things on random labels. They were based in Oxford PA where they played regularly and released a ton of music together. I labelled it as bluegrass but I’d really call it either old time music or appalachian music.

Check those out here: Aloha / White Flower, Deacons Boogie / Uncloud Day, When My Time Comes / Just Over In The Glory Land

Last but not least is this odd instrumental from David Beeler. It’s not straight country, more like classical or flamenco inspired country instrumentals. I’m not sure if I could really describe it any better, I’d suggest you just give it a listen.

Do that here: https://dollarcountry.org/items/show/28076

Cheers
Franklin

LPs on the Database

Posted on by Frank The Drifter

When Dollar Country started I only collected 45s, it seemed easier and cleaner. Two songs per disc is nice. No picture sleeves, a nice big hole in the middle that helps you hold onto a stack while you flip through. Life was easy back then.

People used to mention how I didn’t collect LPs, I had to turn down so many, but at that point they just didn’t interest me. There’s probably a reason I told people but really I just wasn’t interested in them for whatever reason. At some point that changed because I realized there were a lot of great things on big records and the genres represented were different. In country you’ll always have more than enough 45s. Gospel and Bluegrass are much more LP centered. If you’re gonna spread the word of god you may as well do 30 minutes instead of 6.

So, anyway, things are different now. I’m still picky about country LPs because it’s not really worth collecting stuff unless it’s rare, you can find non-rare stuff in other people’s collections. But with Country Gospel you just have so many options on LP that never made it to a single.

Another thing 45s have going for them is that they’re easy to input to a database, LPs on the other hand have significantly more information. Not just more songs, but more songwriting credits, more publishing credits, more, more more. Personally I also have a check in system for my 45s. Clean them, sleeve them, stamp them with a date, ID number, and source number from where I got it, and now it’s in the collection. LPs take longer to listen to, take longer to log, and take up more space. Now multiply that by a few thousand.

Now that you’ve heard plenty about my feelings towards the different sizes, maybe you can understand why I haven’t put any LPs on the database yet. But I wanted to put them on there, I was just waiting to get my head right. To have the best entry point into it. I made sure the database was ready (there’s a lot of inside baseball for database and info stuff happening here), and I had all the right fields set. Yesterday I put the first full listing up with audio and everything.

This record isn’t special outside of it being the first one. I mean it’s special in the way that any bit of music is special, but I didn’t choose it just for this. I’ve also made the streaming audio into a basic video with the album covers so it’s more like youtube. People seem to like that style of video and something about just having streaming audio felt lacking to me, and maybe to others it did too.

The end goal is to have the website feel institutional in that it’s focused on the information but also not have it feel clunky in the way that many institutional websites feel. Useful in the way that the internet used to feel 10+ years ago and without the constant ads, unneeded widgets, and website features that seem to take away from the actual usefulness of the website. Has anyone else noticed this? It drives me crazy when I want the hours of a business and I have to go to a website that’s mostly scrolling pictures and I can’t just find out when they’re open.

Here it is, I hope you like it. The Byrd Sisters are as good a group as any to start it off. Three Sisters In Jesus, although in real life they’re two daughters and a mother.

Visit the entry here, and keep checking for more.

https://dollarcountry.org/items/show/27946

Browse By State or Year

Posted on by Frank The Drifter

Go here to browse: https://dollarcountry.org/browse-by

I’ve just added a page to the database where you can easily search records by their release year or state. It’s still basic, but it’s a step in making the database easier to use!

A lot of people got a hold of me when I posted the map asking what records I had from different places and so I thought this would be helpful. I just finished North Carolina last night and am going to be working on North Dakota to West Virgnia this week. After that basic data entry is done I think I’ll be able to do some really cool stuff.

Things still to do:

  • Finish adding state/location data to records
  • tie location data to artist
  • tie location data to label
  • try to have different lists for label, artist, and record location (if possible)

So basically I have a lot of data entry still to do, but I like data entry and I think that the difference between a normal database and a helpful database is users being able to easily browse and view information.

Leave a comment if there’s some sort of data you’d like to see in a map, or an improvement to the database. Also let me know if you hit a broken link.

Interactive Location Map

Posted on by Frank The Drifter

This is something I’ve been working towards for a long time, having a map like this is a big goal for me. What you have here is an interactive map on google of all the locations I have 45s from, that I know of anyway. I started keeping location data back in 2020 when I did a big project to post one record from each US state on instagram. It might not look like it, but this map is the culmination of at least 100 hours of work. I went through each record in the collection and found out where the label and/or artist was from and logged it on lists. I still have a *big* list of unknown location records that I want to figure out someday, but for now this is what I got.

This map is made up of data from the DC Archives 45 rpm collection. So there are no locations from LPs here. Also this is just one point for each location. So if I have 20 records from Cleveland and 1 record from Kenosha the map will show them equally. This is a beginning, a rough draft. Eventually I want to have a map like this on the database where you can not only see the points like this but also the amount of records from each location with data about amount of records from each state, region, etc.

The other major point for this data is that I’ve left of all major labels and most big labels. For instance, Starday isn’t included here because it’s a big country label. The big names like Decca, RCA, and Capitol are not included either. My goal is to have a map like this that shows where normal people were making and releasing records, and if we include the majors then the map will become heavily skewed to a handful of big cities.

You can browse the map here: RECORD LOCATIONS MAP

Cheers
Franklin

PS. if you see spots where I don’t have records from and have any you’d like to donate then please reach out, I’d be happy to add them to the database!

DB Update: State of Origin Lists

Posted on by Frank The Drifter

Back in 2021 I went through every record in the collection to make lists on discogs of what state they were from. Sometimes it’s the label, sometimes it’s the artist, and sometimes I couldn’t figure it out at all. Well those lists remained on discogs and I updated them whenever I put a new record into the collection over there. I’m working on a new project where I want to share records by State so I’m translating the discogs lists to my database. So far I’ve gotten Alabama through Illinois moved over, I’m working alphabetically.

Once I’m done I’m gonna have a page where you can browse by state to see records from each state. I’m pumped to get this information moved over.

Here’s a few if you wanna browse:
Alabama
Arkansas
California

Let me know if you want the state list and I can link you to it!

Cheers
Franklin