Frank Driggs
| Frank Driggs | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 29, 1930 Manchester, Vermont |
| Died | September 20, 2011 (aged 81) New York, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | record producer and archivist |
Frank Driggs (January 29, 1930 – September 20, 2011) was an American record producer for Columbia records and jazz historian and author, best known for his collection of over 100,000 pieces of Jazz memorabilia including photographs, 314 oral history recordings and other items.
Frank Driggs first became enamored with jazz and swing listening to late-night broadcasts from hotels and ballrooms in the 1930s. A 1952 Princeton University graduate with a degree in political science, Driggs moved to Manhattan where he worked first as an NBC page. Later he joined with Marshall Stearns, founder of the Institute of Jazz Studies, and others in documenting jazz history. In the late 1950s, the record producer John Hammond hired Driggs to assist him at Columbia Records. Soon Driggs was producing records, organizing recording sessions and putting out important re-issues of 78 rpm recordings by Fletcher Henderson, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and Gene Krupa. His work at Columbia included Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings (for which he received a Grammy in 1991). Driggs later produced recordings for Epic, Okeh, MCA, Stash, and Time-Life Records, before reviving the Bluebird label for RCA Records in the early 1970s.
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