Donald Theodore Kent (April 20, 1944 – August 9, 2015) was an American collector of
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...
s (such as Mamlish Records, Country Turtle Records, and Flying Crow Records), and a much sought-after writer of liner notes not only on his own labels' issues but also on others', such as
Yazoo Records
Yazoo Records is an American record label founded in the mid-1960s by Nick Perls. It specializes in early American blues, country, jazz, and other rural American genres collectively known as roots music.
History
The first five releases (L 1001 ...
. Many of the blues reissue albums of the 1960s and 1970s use 78-rpm records from his large collection.
Kent was born in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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,
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
. He was employed as a
social worker
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
in the New York City Department of Social Services. In the 1960s he was a member of the so-called Blues Mafia in New York City, a group of blues
enthusiast
In modern usage, enthusiasm refers to intense enjoyment, interest, or approval expressed by a person. The term is related to playfulness, inventiveness, optimism and high energy. The word was originally used to refer to a person possessed by Go ...
s, whose other members were Steve Calt (author of liner notes and books),
Samuel Charters
Samuel Barclay Charters IV (August 1, 1929 – March 18, 2015) was an American music historian, writer, record producer, musician, and poet. He was a widely published author on the subjects of blues and jazz. He also wrote fiction.
Overview
Cha ...
Stefan Grossman
Stefan Grossman (born April 16, 1945) is an American acoustic fingerstyle guitarist and singer, music producer and educator, and co-founder of Kicking Mule records. He is known for his instructional videos and Vestapol line of videos and DVDs.
...
(also known as Kid Future,
Kicking Mule Records
Kicking Mule Records was an American independent record label, founded in Berkeley, California in 1971 by guitarist Stefan Grossman and Eugene "ED" Denson, formerly co-owner of Takoma Records. The company's name comes from the country blues sexu ...
), Tom Hoskins (also known as Fang, who "rediscovered"
Mississippi John Hurt
John Smith Hurt (March 8, 1893 – November 2, 1966), better known as Mississippi John Hurt, was an American country blues singer and guitarist.
Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself to play the guitar around the age of nine. He wo ...
Nick Perls
J. Nicholas Perls (4 April 1942 – 22 July 1987)Yazoo and
Blue Goose Records
Blue Goose Records was an American independent record label set up in the early 1970s by Nick Perls.
While on Blue Goose's sister label, Yazoo Records, Perls compiled rare 78 rpm recordings from the 1920s by Charley Patton, Blind Willie McTell, Me ...
), Phil Spiro (who, along with Nick Perls and
Dick Waterman
Dick Waterman (born July 14, 1935) is an American writer, promoter and photographer who has been influential in the development and recording of the blues since the 1960s.
Life and career
Waterman was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States ...
Origin Jazz Library
Origin Jazz Library is an independent record label established by Bill Givens and Pete Whelan in 1960 to reissue blues from the 1920s and 1930s. Today the label specializes in reissues of jazz, western swing, folk music, and ragtime.
Origin's fi ...
).
He died at the Regional Medical Center in
Spartanburg
Spartanburg is a city in and the seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city of Spartanburg has a municipal population of 38,732 as of the 2020 census, making it the 11th-largest city in the state. For a time, the Offi ...
,
South Carolina
)''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
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, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
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