“Finding gold in the city dump” is how Charles Bukowski once described his elation when first discovering the writings of John Fante. I have had similar experiences in my hunting for rare and obscure music. Case and point- one day while sifting through boxes of old junk at the local swap meet, I found an extremely rare Charles Mingus 78 rpm record entitled “Inspiration” on the REX Of Hollywood label. It was an interesting find and I knew it must be of some significant value. Ten years later I received a phone call from Dr. Bob Sunnenblick, who was on a mission to locate and compile Mingus’ complete works from 1945-49 for the very first time, and he informed me that my copy of Inspiration was the only known copy. I was more than happy to contribute to this project, which took several more years to complete, including a comprehensive 96 page booklet with lots of great photos and interviews. The final product is worth it’s weight in gold, especially for the price, and I have just found a web page with the MP3’s for sale as downloads.
http://www.emusic.com/album/Charles-Mingus-Charles-Baron-Mingus-West-Coast-1945-49-MP3-Download/11142166.html
