Today Tim welcomes the Smith Family! More than 25 years ago, retired music executive Joe Smith accomplished a Herculean feat—he got more than 200 celebrated singers, musicians and industry icons to talk about their lives, music, experiences, and contemporaries.

In 2012 Smith donated this treasure trove of unedited sound recordings to the nation's library, The Library of Congress.

The Joe Smith Collection contains over 225 recordings of noted artists and executives and is veritable who's who in the music industry.

They include Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Ray Charles, Barbra Streisand, Little Richard, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Elton John, Paul Simon, David Bowie, Billy Joel, Sting, Tony Bennett, Joan Baez, James Taylor, Dick Clark, Tina Turner, Tom Jones, B.B. King, Quincy Jones, David Geffen, Mickey Hart, Harry Belafonte, and many others. All types of popular music are represented—from rock ‘n' roll, jazz, rhythm & blues, and pop to big-band, heavy metal, folk, and country-western.

While president of Capitol Records/EMI, Smith recorded 238 hours of interviews over two years, excerpts of which he compiled and presented in his groundbreaking book, "Off the Record," published by Warner Books in 1988. These candid and unabridged interviews have been digitized by the Library and initially are accessible in the Recorded Sound Research Center.

Meet The Smiths!

https://www.loc.gov/collections/joe-smith/about-this-collection/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices