Jan 2026: Streaming Server, Digital Organization, and Gospel Mixtape

Posted on January 6, 2026 by Frank The Drifter

Dollar Country ended 2025 with a lot of work that is invisible to the outside world, although it’s work that is incredibly important. I’ve taken on the task of organizing DC’s digital files. This got kicked off by my project to host a small streaming service for myself.

Dollar Country Streaming Server
I found myself without a streaming service last month and after thinking about what I wanted to do and trying a few things I decided not to pay for one at all. They’ve always felt unfortunate to me anyway, so this way I don’t have to feel like I’m supporting a system that is generally exploitative of the artists who make it possible. Multiple people had suggested I try self hosting my own music so I could listen to my collection via streaming instead of paying for a service. It seemed like a lot of work at first but after consideration I thought it made a lot of sense.

Plex is a streaming service that allows you to host your own media server. Many people use it for TV shows and movies, but it also works with music. Considering that the vast majority of music in the Dollar Country archive isn’t on any streaming service then this would allow me to actually be able to hear this stuff outside of putting the records on. I love putting on a record, but now I can listen to obscure country gospel LPs while I’m driving or out of the house. Ideally this streaming server would be available to many others, but I’m not entirely sure how that would work from a logistics and legal standpoint.

Digital Organization
Starting the Plex server made me realize that my digital files needed to be organized. In the last 9 years I’ve taken pictures of thousands of records and created tends of thousands of photos. According to windows I’ve got 27,709 label pictures that take up 33.5 gigabytes of space. This work is largely invisible to the outside world but I’ve found it to be very important to the work of archiving. If my folders are all mixed up and only I know how they are set up then that only helps me, when I standardize their organization it can be helpful to anyone who looks at it.

Over the years I’ve accumulated hundreds of newspaper clippings, thousands of pictures, and thousands of audio files that are all located in different folders. By the end of 2026 I aim to have all of this digital information organized so that when you click on the Eddie Noack folder you have folders for clippings, pictures of records, and audio instead of them being in three different places. From there I hope to be able to have audio digitized of large swaths of the collection to share. This information is great to have, but my goal is to have it available to people that aren’t me, so that’s where I’m trying to shift my focus this year. This is going to require a tremendous amount of work, if you’d like to help with data entry on the database then drop me a line at host@dollarcountry.org.

Gospel Mixtape
The biggest change that’s happened with having a streaming server is that I’ve gotten to spend much more time with the country gospel LPs in the archive. I love putting on a record and giving it a listen, but the huge volume of records in the archive prohibit me from actually doing that. When I have time to listen to the records I prioritize digitizing new ones and adding them to the stacks, so relistening rarely happens. Now that I can listen in the car I’ve been spending some serious time with these records and putting certain songs away for a mixtape I’d like to release. Gospel music spends a lot of time singing about getting to the other side. Death or what happens after. Having grown up non-religious, I find this very interesting and after asking people about this I’ve found that it is generally of interest to a lot of people.

So by following this thread of cancelling a streaming service we arrive at a large scale digital reorganization and a new DC mixtape. It’s interesting how following these paths can lead to places you never thought of at first.

See you next time,
Frank The Drifter

LP Arrivals, NTS Xmas Show, State Of The Archive 2025

Posted on December 23, 2025 by Frank The Drifter

State Of The Archive 2025
2025 was a year of adaptation for Dollar Country. After having our baby in late 2023 I scrambled with what to do in 2024. DC started a newsletter, tried to still release a ton of episodes, and generally tried to do too much. For 2025 my goal was to slow down and get an idea of not what could be done but what should be done. So here’s the rundown:

First Full Year As A Non Profit
2025 was the first full year that Dollar Country was a non-profit organization. It was also the first year where DC received any sort of grant money, which was part of the reasoning in going for non-profit status. With help from my friend, non-profit guru, and supporter Max Paley, we were able to apply for a few grants, eventually receiving one from the Ohio Arts Council to help with our project to digitize many old, odd, and unloved discs that are in the collection. (See the Dollar Country Acetate Project)
The Newsletter
When it started I had intended on the newsletter to be every month, that quickly proved to be unsustainable. Now I think of it more as a bucket that slowly fills with ideas to write about, once the bucket is full the newsletter gets written and sent out. I’ve also stopped posting it online except to patrons. That wasn’t intentional at first. I kept hearing bad things about substack and so I wanted to switch platforms, but I just didn’t have time to think about it. I’d still like to post it online somewhere but I also kind of enjoy the community of just sending out the physical version. I’m not making any promises with how this will work in 2026, but I haven’t lost my interest in writing and designing the newsletter.
Goals For 2026
Next October is the 10 year anniversary of Dollar Country. I have a short list of goals for October that include having every 45 pictured, adding more audio, and having every show page updated with links to the records. Tentatively I have a big show planned for the 10 year anniversary, but, once again, I won’t be making any promises until I know I can keep them.
How To Support Dollar Country
- The best way is to join the patreon
- Send a one time donation via
  - paypal – host@dollarcountry.org
  - venmo – @dollarcountry
  - cashapp – $dollarcountry
- Tell a friend! Let someone know about what I do!

LP New Arrivals
Below are the records I’ve listened to and logged since last time.

NTS Xmas
My bi-monthly episode on NTS radio was right before Christmas this year so why not do a Christmas show? You can hear it here: https://www.nts.live/shows/dollar-country/episodes/dollar-country-20th-december-2025

Thanks For Reading
If you need to contact me for anything, feel free to drop me a line in the comments or email me at host at dollarcountry dot org

Cheers
Franklin

Fall 2025: 14,000 Records, Volunteers, Sale Lists and Nick Shoulders

Posted on November 25, 2025 by Frank The Drifter

Hello, hello, hello. I wrote a reminder for myself to make a blog post every weekend to keep the internet updated on Dollar Country, but of course when the reminder bell went off I was pretty tired so I put it off and put it off. Many things have happened this Autumn in the world of DC.

Nick Shoulders

On November 18th and 20th I had the pleasure of playing records at the Nick Shoulders shows in Detroit and Cleveland respectively. I’ve done this a handful of times before, all of the gigs he’s done in Cleveland since 2021, and a few elsewhere. It’s always fun because Nick is a buddy and it’s great to see him, but I also love his music. The crowd at his shows are just about the perfect crowd for Dollar Country too. I met a ton of nice folks who seemed interested in what DC does and a bunch of people who already knew about DC. Opening the Detroit show was Jackson & The Janks, and Clover Lynn at the Cleveland gig, both were acts I’d never seen before and both were excellent.

Tour poster signed by all the folks who played in Cleveland.

Playing with Nick is a perfect storm because we’re both admirers of what each other does, so the admiration ends up going both ways. It makes me feel good.

A Truck Full Of Records

In early November my buddy Brian contacted me saying there was a guy on the east side of Cleveland who had boxes and boxes of LPs, 45s, and 78s and that I should get over there and look them over. Well, I couldn’t make it there that weekend and before I knew it Brian had texted saying the guy wanted $1000 for all the 45s and would I like to go in on the collection with him. The answer was Yes and a day later we were the proud owners of 100+ white boxes of 45s. I told him I just wanted the country stuff, and so we got to work looking through all these records. Buying that many 45s at a time is something that is always exciting because anything could be in there, but then a week later you’re surrounded by boxes and asking yourself what the hell you were thinking. Fast forward another week and those feelings have gone back and forth so many times that you don’t even know how you feel about it, but now you have a few boxes of cool records you didn’t have before.

All in all I found about two boxes of keepers for myself, 5 or 6 boxes of country stuff I’m going to add to the sale list, and most of the rest went back to Brian for him to sell.

Sale List

I stashed many boxes of stuff to sell over the years and finally started putting it all together recently. I’ve sent out the sale list twice so far, if you wanna be on the email list then let me know at host at dollarcountry dot org. I’ll be adding a TON of solid country to the list from the recent buy.

Dollar Country Volunteers

In the last couple months I’ve come to the realization that the amount of work I’ve set out to do can’t be done by one person, so I’ve been trying to take advice from other folks by understanding that to really have Dollar Country do all the great archiving it can do then I will need help from others and have to let go of some of my control to allow for more to happen.

KMC and Zach have been helping with computer stuff. KMC hosts the website and I’ve been working with him for a few years now, Zach has been writing code to make the database a lot better. Zach and Glen are helping me with digitization. Zach digitizes LPs and posts them and things from his own collection at The Vinyl Archive on youtube. Glen will be digitizing 45s. DJ is going to be helping with database submissions and editing starting next month.

If you’d like to help with the database then please drop me a line. I’m looking for folks who are interested in editing the database (adding records and editing record information) as well as research.

April 2025 Record Roundup

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Frank The Drifter

This month I put a power play on the database. The goal was to see how many records I could submit with fresh pictures and audio, and I managed to put up 105 records, many of them with audio. Below are some of the ones I think stand out.

Bluegrass

Foggy Blues is basically a blues song but the flip is a great banjo driven instrumental. Klub was based out of the Carolinas and had plenty of good bluegrass and country on it. Shack Creek Bluegrass Boys and Olabelle & Alex are both great bluegrass singles. The Rimrock, out of Arkansas, is instrumental. The New River is their own label out of Pennsylvania.

Country

I was very happy with this Carson Brothers single, I want to find another copy! It’s crudely recorded country tunes about a truck accident. Maco Light is about a North Carolina legend of a light that’s explained in the song.

The Don West is one of the few records I have from New Hampshire, it’s just two really great honky tonk songs. The Hayseeds I bought many years ago in Kansas City and for some reason I suspect it’s an all female country band but I’m not sure if it’s a hunch or I read something. Either way the Mule Skinner Blues version on that one is one of my favorites.

Gospel

I entered a few LPs this year and this is one of them. Who doesn’t like a girl with big hair? Great accordion and solid gospel LP all the way through. The Harmony Twins were based in Ohio and this is the second of their singles I’ve found. Holmes Family Gospel Singers is on Loyal, a fairly well known gospel label from Alabama. Good stuff.

Here’s the full list of everything added this month to the database

New Editions to the Database 4/27/25

Posted on April 27, 2025 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

Hoot Roberts – Stop The World And Let Me Off

Posted on February 13, 2025 by Frank The Drifter

Database Link: https://dollarcountry.org/items/show/8712

I have no recollection of where I got this one although it was pre-pandemic. I love that it’s Hoot Roberts on Owl records, it’s nice to have a theme. Stop The World is a great tune, Dearer Than Life is alright but I’d play the top side 9/10 times. According to slipcue.com, Hoot Roberts was originally from Alabama but moved to Wausau Wisconsin and had his country career there. “Big Sound From The North Woods”

One thing of note is that side A is partially credited to W.S. Stevenson, the owner of 4 Star Records. Like many other slippery record men from way back then, he put his name on many songs that he had no hand in writing, but since he owned the music and was the man in charge he got to do all that kind of stuff without anyone coming after him.

Cheers
Franklin