Genres

Eras

Welcome to the Country Music Archive

• A treasure trove for Country Music collectors!

  The Country Music Archive (incorporating the British Archive of Country Music, BACM) is believed to be the largest facility in the world outside Nashville dedicated to the preservation of traditional country music.

  The Archive began with the David Barnes collection, but over the years has been added to by contributions from country collectors from all over the world.

  This library of over 670,000 recordings includes tracks on a wide range of media including 78rpm, 45rpm and 33rpm discs/transcriptions, video, audio cassette (normal and 8 track) and reel to reel. Over the past 18 plus years we have been digging into the vaults and releasing material, focusing on Country’s "Golden Era", from the 1920s to the early ‘60s. Our CDs are aimed at core collectors and many feature historic early recordings from before an artist became famous. As far as possible we try to avoid overlapping with "popular" tracks available from other labels so when you buy one of our CDs you are unlikely to receive mere duplicates of recordings already in your collection.

  Whereas the above core catalogue appeals mainly to specialist collectors of early and rare material, our new Chart Memories series (launched in 2016) focuses on more recent 'Hit' material from the 1950s to the early 1960s. For each year, we compile a 'Top 100' country/country crossover hits, based primarily on the US Billboard charts but also taking account of charts from other places where country records sold well like Great Britain, Australia, Canada and Ireland. This Chart Memories series is limited edition and the discs are likely to become valued collectors items. So far we have issued the seven years, 1956 to 1962 - see Chart Memories for details.

  A big welcome to our website and please do take a look around – we hope you find something of interest.

  Dave, on behalf of the Archive team

• Our three new CDs (1st Sept. 2020) brings the BACM main catalogue to 664 albums, all still available. Please browse … and maybe buy a few. Your purchases keep the show on the road, helping us maintain the archive and continue our work researching and releasing long lost Country treasures.

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