Music is worth sharing.

The exact start date for the Bootleg origin story isn’t exactly clear. Circa 1987 is a good guess (maybe 1986). While at a friend’s place in what was likely either the spring or fall of 1987, two-thirds of Side A on a 90-minute cassette tape got filled with songs from the available record collection. The rest of that particular tape was filled with songs from another friend’s mom’s collection, brothers’ collections, and the library. You could say it was a community affair. When finished with the original mix tape, copies were made for a few friends.

That’s how it all started.

In the years that followed, new mix tapes were made and distributed to friends (and friends of friends). Songs were carefully selected and codified on tape. On average a new mix tape probably got created every three or four months. Originally they were simply called “Bootleg Tape # [whatever]”. Later they were given names and even cover art. They got played by a myriad of people all across the country (across the world in fact) on the road, at home, while mowing the lawn, at parties, at the beach, and many more places.

Ultimately tapes made way for CDs. The whole endeavor lasted informally for years.

In recent years, with the practical demise of both tapes and CDs, and the advent of streaming services, the effort to create new Bootlegs essentially died out. Although the love of music never did.

Now the Bootlegs are reborn. And although technology has made creating a playlist arguably “easy”, something anyone or even a computer algorithm can do, know the playlists presented here (like the original Bootlegs), are put together with deliberation, effort and care.

Hope you enjoy.

(June 2020)