Most people know Willis Conover (1920 – 1996), if they know him at all, as one of the great impresarios of jazz: co-founder of the Newport Folk Festival, jazz DJ on the Voice of America for decades (and one of the reasons Eastern Europe’s vibrant jazz scene managed to survive the Cold War), a collector who owned more than 60,000 (no, there’s not an extra zero in there) recordings at the time of his death.

Even when I was writing a lot of music journalism, jazz was never a special passion of mine (oh sure, enough of a passion for me to bring that enthusiasm to Gabriel’s Trumpet, but not the kind of visceral connection I have with blues, country, or punk). So why, you might rightly ask, is Willis Conover showing up on this blog?

Before of all of that, Willis Conover had another life. As a teenager in 1930s Maryland, he got into science fiction (or “scientifiction,” a portmanteau of Gernsback’s still in wide use at the time) and, to a lesser extent, fantasy (then spelled with a “ph” as often as an “f”). Deeply into. With the same methodical thoroughness he would later apply to studying jazz and collecting jazz records, he began studying science fiction and collecting both pulps and fan magazines. At the age of 16, he began publishing a fan magazine of his own, The Science Fantasy Correspondent. In an era when many fan magazines made modern ‘zines look like papers-of-record, Correspondent stood out for the quality of both its production and content.

In fact, Correspondent drew the attention of a certain Weird Fiction author from Providence who contacted Conover, telling him how much he liked the publication. The ensuing correspondence between Conover and Lovecraft would continue throughout the rest of Lovecraft’s life and has been compiled into Lovecraft at Last: The Master of Horror is His Own Words, a complete (or nearly so) collection of their letters. Lovecraft’s friendship and patronage opened doors for Conover to correspondence and friendship with other authors, publishers, and major figures of 1930s fandom.

The public aspects of Conover’s enthusiasm for science fiction and fantasy faded after a couple of years, excluding a secondary period of activity in the 1970s, as his focus turned toward his meritorious service to jazz. He never, however, ceased his correspondence or collecting.

So, why am telling you this?

Unsurprisingly, Conover’s papers ended up at the University of North Texas, one of the country’s better jazz schools (yes, really, look it up), which happens to be located in the town where I live. Among that collection’s 300 boxes, primarily of Conover’s jazz records, interviews, correspondence with musicians, and so forth, are 30 boxes, more or less, connected to his earlier enthusiasm.

Even with briefest examinations of some of those boxes, I am left wondering to quote Pinhead (“We have such sights to show you.”) or Roy Batty (“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe”).

To give a little teaser, inside one obscure Lovecraft volume in the Conover collection, I found the following inscription:

To Willis – so you can complete your collection of Lovecraftiana!
All the best –

Arthur Clarke

I had no idea Arthur C. Clarke was even a fan of Lovecraft. Compared with that, For Willis Conover, with the hope that we may have an immersive moment or two. Cordially, August Derleth, seems rather prosaic.

Over the coming months, and even years, I expect many of my posts here to focus on things I’ve encountered (I hate the phrase “discovered” when used in connection with archives. The items were, after all, there all along – often listed plainly on the finding aid) in that collection. Things that have inspired me, surprised me, or broadened my horizons. Hell, I might even do some actual research.

I’ve spent the past week scrutinizing two boxes containing 175 discrete issues of 46 different science fiction and fantasy fan magazines from the 1930s — full of fiction from names you know, editorials and non-fiction from names you should know, and amazing art that while not always masterful is powerful and evocative — as well as related materials. I would expect my next few Conover-related posts to focus on those.

And just so nobody goes away disappointed, Willis Conover did have a few secrets. One of the first things I encountered was a letter from a young woman who wrote to Conover while both of them were in the army during Word War Two. Her salutation to him was “Daddy Dear,” and the letter gets more interesting from there. It’s not the only thing like that I’ve found…

(Special thanks to Maristella Feustle, Music Special Collections Librarian, and Jess Tucker, University Archivist, both at the University of North Texas, for facilitating my access to the Willis Conover collection)