Right now I’m working, for one of my last projects, on a 20-CD boxed set on the Louisiana Hayride (the long-running radio show where Elvis got his start). We have a box on the pride of the American public: the atom bomb. “There’s so much good music,” he enthuses.

Weize cites his boxes on country singers Lefty Frizzell, Jim Reeves and Don Gibson as some of his best work. James Mangold, the director of “Walk The Line” once said, “I would not have made this movie if I had not come across the Johnny Cash box set released by Bear Family Records.’ ” Then, if the customer likes it, that’s good too. I can’t conceive something that’s only good enough for the customer. “In the beginning, I thought to myself, ‘this has to work.’ Now, if people don’t like it, I say f*ck it. His personal stash of more than 100,000 singles, 30,000 LPs and 20,000 78s strong guides his principle - and mission statement - of if he likes it, so will his customers. Unlike today when everything seems to be right on the back of your hand.” I had to go out of my way, and when one has to do that as the only way to find something, you treasure it more than if it comes to you.

“I also had a lot of friends who I exchanged tapes and records with. “I had to depend on America’s Armed Forces Radio Network to even hear country music at all at the time,” Weize explains. In fact, Bear Family just one-upped my precious Killer box by unleashing an 18-CD “The Complete Jerry Lee Lewis On Sun” box earlier this year.īack in ’75, though, Weize was a total music nerd and collector of American country music, which was hard to find. When we unveiled it, we did it at Berlin’s biggest temple.” What other company would come out with a 10-CD “Jewish Music Of The Nazi Regime”? Weize says, “that’s really a milestone of Jewish music. They are three of my most prized possessions. This reporter owns Bear Family boxes on Jerry Lee Lewis, Everly Brothers and Dean Martin.

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