Usually I’m looking for something waiting to be found. Sometimes I find clues that require much more looking. This is one of those sometimes. It started with an empty book in the Adirondack Mountains of Northeastern New York and ended with a more complete understanding of what came to be known as rock and roll. Along the way I got to know a teenager from 1955. Hit play and listen as you learn the story of Peg Doty.

In upstate New York, just across Lake George, I stopped at what appeared to be an abandoned home but turned out to be a densely populated junk store. Inside there was a raised platform with a wood-burning stove and an ash-smoking tray between two guys playing backgammon. They pretended they didn’t want to kill me and I pretended I wasn’t afraid they would kill me. An unspoken peace was brokered. Surrounding them were hundreds of empty cans of Canada’s best worst beer; Labatt Blue. Surrounding the beer cans were shelves of assorted Adirondack leftovers, including a few thousand records. Over the next few hours I pulled dozens of great LPs, and the ones I liked all seemed to be of a similar fifties vintage…

…and once I got back home I realized that they all had the same back-slanted signature on the back cover. Somehow, over fifty years later I had reassembled the collection of  someone named Peg Doty. There were thousands of records in that store, and I wondered if most of them were hers and I had just picked the best. So I went back in search of more Doty, but there was none. While there were hundreds more to choose from, the only records I liked were the records she liked. It’s like we were communicating by making the exact same choices. Simultaneously separated by six decades.

While I didn’t find more of her records on my second trip, I did find this book. It’s a 78rpm portfolio that once held 10 shellac discs. And even though it was empty, it did contain some interesting clues. Pasted cut-out photos along with an index written in a familiar back-slanted handwriting. Peg and I had found another way connect.

These weren’t just esoteric entertainers from years ago. This was an integrated playlist of black and white artists representing jazz, rhythm and blues, and doo-wop. In other words, rock and roll. But this list was from 1955 and most of the world hadn’t yet heard the term. It was still taking shape and Peg was doing the shaping.

In the early and mid-fifties, music was more regional than national. Television was still developing and most radio programs were collections of local personalities and tastes that was predominately white. There were stations targeting black listeners, but they were very low wattage and hard to find. But this list represented artists and labels from Chicago, New York, New Orleans, and Los Angeles. So how and why was Peg able to identify and acquire these types of records?

The answer was on the inside back cover of her book. His name is Alan Freed. He was the DJ widely credited with promoting the term “rock and roll” to describe the up-tempo mix of R&B, Country, and Doowop records he played in 1955 on WINS (1010 AM) in New York City, where I imagine Peg lived and listened. More connections to another life in another time and place. The book had become a time machine and Peg was telling me about her life.

Eventually the empty folio found it’s way onto a shelf and Peg and I lost touch. Five years later she must have pulled some levers because the universe reached out. I was at a roadside flea market near Hastings Minnesota digging through crates when I saw a familiar name. It was Alan Freed on what I thought was sheet music. I grabbed it along with a few other things and took it home. When I finally took a look I couldn’t believe what I had acquired. This was a program for The Alan Freed Big Beat Concert from 1958. Calling it a concert isn’t quite right. This was an epic gathering of the archetypes of modern music: Buddy Holly, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Frankie Lymon, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, The Chantels, and a dozen more. The picture of Alan Freed was the same as Peg’s book. She must have seen a 1955  showcase and cut up the program to adorn her book. Take a look at these pages and imagine all of those artists on one stage in a single afternoon. This was when the Gods walked among us and she was there. You can grab each image to stop, change direction, or accelerate the carousel.

This was the third time Peg and I intersected, so I treated it like a charm. It was time to complete the book. Five years later it’s finally done. Ten amazing records sequenced to her specifications. I clustered the A sides and B sides together assuming that’s how she would listen to them on a stackable turntable. The music you’re hearing now was originally purchased, indexed and adorned with care in 1955. These are not the popular hits of the time, but rather the collection of a discerning listener with a feel for the right music in the right order. This is the first time in over 60 years that they’ve been heard as she would have heard them. I hope you and enjoy it as much as I do. Thanks Peg. Whoever and wherever you might be.

If you would like to browse individual tracks, see below for the sequenced playlist. However, if you’re still listening to the stream from the top of the page, you’ll have to scroll up and hit the pause button.