Roger Hamilton Spotts collection

This collection consists mainly of photographs related to the life of musician and composer Roger Hamilton Spotts. Original photographs in the collection include images of Spotts; his wife, Betty (nee Mosley); and their daughter, Woni, during the late 1950s through the 1980s. Also present are two hand-colored portrait photographs of Spotts’ parents, Marian H. and Hardin A. Spotts. The majority of the collection is comprised of reprints of original photographs that were subsequently lost in a fire. They depict Roger H. Spotts as a student at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, in the late 1940s, as well as his military service in the U.S. Army from 1951 to 1953. Various reprints also depict Spotts in various musical ensembles and performances during the late 1940s through the 1950s. The collection also includes two sound recordings: a compact disc (circa 1993) entitled “Hard Working Man” by James Dorsey and the Roger Hamilton Spotts Orchestra and a phonograph record of the soundtrack to the 1975 blaxploitation film Tongue, which was composed by Spotts. A small number of digital files of photographs and sheet music of compositions by Roger Hamilton Spotts are also present. These are housed on a digital server.