While in college at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, I would frequently break away from the library and head downtown to look for records.  In the early '70s, Providence was a funky place to be, and I loved it.

Downtown at his modest record shop is where I met the legendary Big Al Pavlow, one of the greatest record collectors of all time.  He taught me many things about collecting, but mostly he introduced me to the entire history of recorded sound.  Often I would go over to his house, and he would play me records that I'd taken for granted (usually big band or doo-wop or novelty).  Any record he played me was like an explosion of honest sound.  The man didn't lie.

Back in 1983, this Rhode Island record store owner put out an amazing book called  Big Al Pavlow's The R and B Book: A Disc-History of Rhythm & Blues . This incredible book tried to list the "biggest" R&B hits for each year from 1943-1959, added lists of not-quite-as-popular-but-"representative"-in-some-fashion records for each year AND then tossed in lists of some "representative race (blues) and jazz records" for each year from 1920-1942!

This is one of the greatest music reference books I own (yes, this is a duplicate...I would NEVER sell my only copy).

You can find this rare item today at PopKrazy .