Ben Brown Bluegrass collection

Collection

Identifier: MS-1998-06

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection consists of eleven 10 1/2 inch reels of 1/2 inch magnetic audio tapes used as the basis for a record album released by Kaloosa Records of Tampa, Florida in 1972. The music was recorded live at the White Springs Bluegrass Festival, held at the Steven Foster Memorial Folk Festival in White Springs, Florida. Ben Brown, a University of South Florida graduate, produced and directed the recording. Performers featured at the festival included Charlie Cox, Dave Bellamy, Country Grass, Chubby Anthony, Dale Crider, Grade and the Good Guys, Thompson family, Orange Blossom Bluegrass, Rose City Boys of Thomasville, Georgia, and Sunny Bluegrass.

Dates

Created: 1972
Other: Date acquired: 02/12/1998

Creator

Brown, Ben (Person)

Conditions Governing Use

None. The contents of this collection may be subject to copyright. Visit the United States Copyright Office's website at http://www.copyright.gov/ for more information.

Biographical or Historical Information

A Tampa native, Ben Brown received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in English from the University of South Florida in 1969 and 1976, respectively. During his first year of his Ph.D., Brown was hired as a feature writer and TV columnist for the Tampa Tribune. In 1979, Brown moved to the Detroit News, and in 1982, he was invited to join the original staff of USA today. During his 12 year career at USA Today headquarters in Washington, D.C., Brown served as the LIFE section's first television editor; wrote cover stories that appeared in various sections of the paper; helped developed the "USA at PLAY" page for recreational travel; worked on special project assignments in England, South Africa and Japan; and worked as a writer/editor on four Olympics, including the 1996 games in Atlanta. The final two years of Ben Brown's USA Today career (1995-1996) were spent in Atlanta, where he established the paper's 1996 Olympic Bureau and reported on the politics and economics of staging the largest games in history. Following the Olympics, Ben moved to Birmingham, Alabama, to become the founding executive editor of Coastal Living, a new national lifestyle magazine from Southern Progress Corporation, the Time-Warner subsidiary that publishes-- among other titles-- Southern Living, Southern Accents, and Cooking Light. In January, after helping supervise the four issues in Coastal's debut year, he transferred to the company's largest and most popular magazine, Southern Living, as a feature writer. In 1992, Doubleday published Ben's first book, St. Bobby and the Barbarians, about the 1991 football season with Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden. And in 1996, Warner Books issued Winning's Only Part of the Game, a book Ben co-authored with Bobby, Terry, and others in the Bowden coaching family.

Note written by PEC