Collection of antique records reflects ‘old time religion’_11204

Posted: 1/15/04

Collection of antique records reflects ‘old time religion’

By George Henson

Staff Writer

DEL VALLE—Lee Laake loves the past. It’s the future that troubles him, particularly the future of his treasured gospel music collection.

Over the years, Laake has collected about 200 Southern gospel phonograph records still in playable condition. Many are 78s, some dating from as early as 1916. Others are 33s, dating from the 1950s and 1960s.

He found many himself. His friend Ralph Boschert in Odessa discovered others in antique shops and estate sales.

Some of the Bakelite-covered pressed-wood records are so old they were recorded on only one side, with the other remaining flat without grooves.

“I don’t really know what to do with them, but to me they represent a major piece of the timeframe in the history of the gospel,” Laake said. “Churches tend to delete songs and add new songs, but these old songs still are a big part of the gospel.”

Initially, Laake, a member of River Road Baptist Church in Austin, was drawn to the crank and variable-speed phonographs on which the records were played, but he quickly developed an affection for the records themselves.

Part of the attraction of the songs was that he could identify with so many of the lyrics, he said.

“‘There’s No Housing Shortage in Heaven’—that’s the name of one of the songs. I can identify with that because at the end of World War II there was a definite housing shortage. My father wanted to build us a house, and he couldn’t even find the wood,” Laake recalled.

“The older music, you can close your eyes and listen to them and project yourself back into that time frame and see what they are singing about. You can tell just from listening to them that they had a totally different viewpoint on things.”

On a recent afternoon, Laake listened to the Tuskegee Institute Singers wax melodic on the tunes “Good News” and “Live a-Humble” on the Victor Talking Machine label, circa 1916.

“It just fascinates me how they harmonize without any instruments in the background to help,” he said.

As much affection as Laake has for the records, he has decided that it is time for them to become someone else’s treasures.

“I think it’s time for them to find a new home with someone who will take care of them and enjoy them,” Laake said. “I kind of think of Ralph and me as having rescued them from the trash can. I’d hate to see them wind up there now.”

Still, Laake doesn’t know what to do with the collection, whether to look for a buyer or find a music school that might be interested in them.

“I could use the cash, but the main thing is to find someone who is still interested in these old songs,” he said. “They might even listen to them and rearrange them somehow and get the young people singing them again.”