Ritchie Yorke, a musical journalist and author, ‘didn’t throw out much, if anything, keeping almost every article, letter, press pass, photograph, vinyl record, concert ticket and item of clothing he’d collected throughout his career.’
Yorke left country Queensland for Brisbane after a falling out when he played Stevie Wonder’s music – that was too much African-American music for his radio station employer. From Brisbane he went to London in 1966 to be where the action was. He worked throughout the northern hemisphere spending time with the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin. His collection documents the international and local scene.
Yorke died in 2017 leaving his family with boxes and boxes of musical memorabilia. The State Library of Queensland ‘wanted to cherry-pick’ from the collection. The National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra has taken the whole collection, recognising it as a national treasure.
From reports in The Age and on Wikipedia and the ABC news website 31 July 2021.
First brought to ESA members attention in the December 2021 Ephemera news.
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