About the SPPS
The SPPS is a non-profit (501c3) electronic library that archives, saves, researches, and shares historic Americana recordings. The goal is to promote the music through appreciation of its history and sounds. The SPPS’ first project was Tut Taylor’s archive of recordings which he made over the years.
The SPPS promotes working Americana Bands by sharing them with the world via their live recordings. We believe the key to the future of our music is our connection to the past. We believe the most meaningful connection is through the sounds that made our music what it is today.
The SPPS is a Proud member of the IBMA.
The Tut Tapes: Where the SPPS began….
Tut Taylor, also known as “Tutbro” has been recording Americana string bands since the 1950s.
Tut Taylor
His endeavor started as a way to learn the music but it became much more. Over the years, he used many tape recorders, but his collection of tapes became a path through history. Taylor’s massive collection of over 500 tape recordings needed to be saved, as it represented a half a century of acoustic music.
This collection consists of over 500 reel to reel and cassette tapes of Tut Taylor and various legendary figures in the American music scene. Your donations go 100% to taking this project to the next level, shipping tapes, work with partners, and more.
If you are a taper/archivist type and have experience tracking shows, we could use your hands-on help with the project get in touch. Let us know about your experience & point us to something you’ve worked on.
Once the music is extracted and archived, the tapes will be donated to the International Bluegrass Music Museum (IBMM).
The SPPS will provide the IBMM, Taylor, and anyone appearing on these tapes (or their families if the artist is no longer with us) with digitized copies as they become available. Our goal is to give this music to the trading community at no cost. We will not be selling CDs of Tut’s collection, and will not make any money from the project.
This task will be a lengthy one due to the age of some of the tapes, and the time required to perform the digitizing. Also, this is an expensive endeavor. Although we have achieved much of the initial cost, we still need donations and contributions for the project to reach its successful completion. We need your support and financial help. Please consider supporting the effort through a donation.
Who We Are
The SPPS is a large group of people who are under-represented on this page. We’re working to correct this as we move forward. If you’ve been left out, please give a heads up to us so we are sure you are included.
Board of Directors
Kurt Asplundh, President
Jeff Mankin, Treasurer
Dave Avery, Tracking Team Coordinator, Archivist
Keith Kreider, Onsite Archival
Garian Vigil, Publicity
Paul Rennix, Server Administrator
Mitchell Wittenberg, Historian
Advisory Board
KC Groves (of Uncle Earl)
Fred Bartenstein (of BluegrassCountry.org and host of Banks of the Ohio)
Tom Spine, Founding Member
Mark Burnell, Founding Member
Mike Cleveland, MikeCleveland.com
Patti Piatt, pmp@johnhartford.com JohnHartford.com
Bob Cherry, cybergrass.com
Professional Volunteers
Andy Rudolph, Legal Advisor, Pepper Hamilton Attorneys At Law
Hal Cohen & Jane Newcomb, Financial Advisers
Mitchell Wittenberg, Tape Research / Historian
Garian Vigil, Promotion & Editing
Chris Coyier, Site Design, WordPress+CSS Guru
Sarah Hagerman – Website News and Feature Editor
Transferring
Dave Avery
Keith Kreider
Bill Reutelhuber
Trackers
Dave Avery
Keith Kreider
Wayne Gucwa
