Ron Hadsall: Pop culture guru, historian and music collector

If all you know about Ron Hadsall is that he sings bass-baritone with the Sounds Good Choir in Arlington Heights and the Skokie Community Choir, you don’t know the half of it. This former math teacher is a serious student of music history, traditions, and artists, and you might say he has the goods to back it up. In his Northbrook home is a collection of thousands of books, records, CDs, posters, photographs, and souvenirs—all of them celebrating music and musicians he enjoys and loves. Ron’s not sure of the size of his collection, as he’s never catalogued it. But he estimates it may be as many as 40-50,000 items. Nor does he track the dollar value, even though he has some items that are quite rare. For Ron, the value lies in the pleasure he derives from owning something that enhances his listening experience or broadens his knowledge of musicians and composers.

One treasured item in Ron’s collection is a copy of the sheet music for Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” originally priced at just 40 cents. It brings to mind the huge contributions of a country singer-songwriter whose career spanned barely a decade (Williams died at age 30). “I can’t emphasize enough how big he was for country music,” Ron says. “Hank Williams was bigger than the Beatles were for rock and roll, or Miles Davis for jazz. He’s that important. I have most of his recordings on CD.”

Another treasure in Ron’s collection is the album cover for a two-record set issued by Vee-Jay Records in 1964. Under the headline “The International Battle of the Century,” the album featured 12 songs each by The Beatles and the Four Seasons. The back cover proclaimed, “You Be the Judge/Keep Score by Rounds.”  Vee-Jay distributed fewer than 20,000 copies, and there is no record that anyone kept score on the “battle of the century.” Founded in Gary in 1953 by the husband-wife team of Vivian Carter and James Bracken, Vee-Jay was one of the first Black-owned and first woman-owned record labels, specializing in R&B, gospel, and soul. The Four Seasons were the first non-Black artists signed by Vee-Jay, and it was the first label in the US to issue singles by The Beatles. Hence the “Battle of the Century.” To learn more about Vee-Jay Records, check out this YouTube documentary about Vee-Jay Records.

“My goal in all this collecting was to have a library of pop culture—not only the things that I enjoy, but musical genres that made a huge impact,” Ron says. “That includes bubblegum, disco, rap, and metal.”  Ron’s listening habits are equally eclectic. He likes to prepare for a listening experience by learning about the music. “If I’m going to play a Bach cantata, I want to know where and how it fits among his works.” The same is true for popular music. Citing the Beatles “Dear Prudence” as an example, Ron notes that the song was composed during the Fab Five’s 1968 sojourn in India, where they studied transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. One of the people in their entourage was Mia Farrow’s sister, Prudence. “George [Harrison] and John [Lennon] wrote the song to coax her out of her self-imposed isolation,” Ron explains. “I don’t know if the song helped her or not, but John was certainly feeling for her. So if a song has feeling behind it, if I know what inspired it, that increases the enjoyment for me.”

Asked to describe his ideal listening experience, Ron says, “So many factors enter into it. I’m a purist, so that means when I hear a song, I want to hear the original version. I guess my ideal experience is listening to a recording at home. Or, when I’m driving home late at night, I can pick up AM radio stations from all over the North American continent. There’s a station out of Toronto that I used to listen to. They played some wild rhythm and blues.”

A Chicagoan by birth, Ron grew up in Glencoe and attended North Shore Country Day School and then Hanover College, where he followed family tradition by preparing for a career in teaching. “My grandfather was a teacher, as was an uncle,” he says. Ron taught mathematics in various schools, and ran a tutoring service before retiring and returning to another family-inspired pursuit, music. “My mother was a musician. She could have been a concert pianist, but she put that aside to raise a family.”

Reflecting on his decision to join Sounds Good after attending a concert, Ron says, “I just love being around people who love music. I’m not a churchgoer, but music replenishes my soul. And with Sounds Good, it’s not just about singing. It’s about helping people.”