Jim Marshall was a longtime friend of Quine, and he is probably the only guy Bob talked to who knew his way around obscure '50s r & b and rockabilly music on a level with him. (Jim was "the Hound" of the excellent WFMU radio show, many examples of which, incidentally, are now available free for the listening at thehound.net/index.html.) Jim sent a series of emails elaborating on Bob's musical obsessions:

Quine's jazz favorites... Miles and Ayler were at the top (especially Miles electric period from 69-74, and also w/ Bill Evans and Coltrane in the late 50's), Ayler esp. w/ Gary Peacock on bass (in fact he loved anything with Gary Peacock on bass). Also he loved Lee Konitz (Motion was one of his all time top LPs), Bill Evans, Charlie Parker, Charlie Christian, Jimmy Raney, Jim Hall (think he took a few lessons from Hall at some point).

Non jazz stuff Quine was obsessed with: J.J. Cale, James Burton, Joe Osborne (bass player, Quine even bought records by the Carpenters and America for his bass playing), Ritchie Valens, Mickey "Guitar" Baker, Ike Turner, and Pee Wee Crayton. I should throw in "Cranberry Blues" by Robert Williams and the Toppers, a 45 I turned him onto that he mentioned in nearly every conversation we ever had.

I forgot Grant Green--a major obsession for Quine, especially his Blue Note stuff and his work on Sam Lazar's Space Flight and Horace Parlan's Up and Down. Lester Young's Aladdin sides, Louis Armstrong's “Stardust” (the alt take). Also he loved some of Albert Ayler's worst stuff (which is amazingly sick) like sides he cut with Canned Heat's Harvey Vestine such as "Drudgery" and "Toilin'". On some of these Ayler tries to sing and it's so sad it's funny.

Nonjazz: early Stones, anything on Sun, Ace, and Fortune. One of the things he seemed most proud of was backing up Andre Williams on a few tracks on his Bait and Switch LP (the only job I ever got for him that he took), Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, the Memphis Slim stuff w/Matt "Guitar" Murphy (Vee Jay and United sides).

Jimmy Reed was another big one. Bob claimed to have fronted a band called the Garbage Vendors that did all Jimmy Reed tunes in the early sixties, he played guitar and rack harmonica. Also Jimmy Reed's sidekick Eddie Taylor.

Quine's first music job was playing bass in an Akron band called the Constellations whose claim to fame is that the sax player had once been in the Caps (an Akron rockabilly band Quine loved and saw once playing at the Fair Lawn Lanes bowling alley in Akron). The Caps cut three 45's--“Daddy Dean” b/w "Red Headed Flea," "Daddy Dean pt. 2," and "What the Heck," all on the White Star label out of Akron.

Add to list of Quine's favorite music--Albert King, Jimi Hendrix, Freddie Cannon's "Tallahassee Lassie" (guitar solo by Kenny Paulson), Roy Buchanan and Harvey Mandel.

I keep thinking of more stuff. He loved Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell. He once made me a tape of their most obscure stuff with a fake Leroy Carr autograph on it. He thought the article I wrote on them for High Times--"Leroy & Scrapper--who they was and what they done" was the best thing I ever wrote.

He was really into 20's and 30's country blues, one of his big faves was Geechie Wiley's "Picked Poor Robin Clean" ("I picked his head/picked his feet/would've picked his body but it wasn't fit to eat...."). He also loved Leadbelly, John Lee Hooker (early Modern and Sensation sides) (he did a college radio show in the early 60's and the theme song was Hooker's "Hoogie Oogie"), Lightnin' Hopkins (Herald stuff). Another favorite was Willie Joe Duncan who played a one string guitar (Unitar) and made two records--"Cherokee Dance" (w/Bob Froggy Landers & His Cough Drops) and "Unitar Rock" (w/Rene Hall).

He also dug Little Richard and Fats Domino, in fact all the classic New Orleans stuff--Huey Smith, Smiley Lewis, Shirley & Lee, etc.

A couple of years ago Quine gave me all his 78's. I tried to explain that one of them (the Beale St. Sheiks) was worth a couple of grand and that I'd pay him for it, but he refused the money. He also gave me the first Johnny Burnette Trio LP, worth about a grand itself (I'd offered $800 for it but he wouldn't take it).

He liked country stuff too--especially Hank Williams, Webb Pierce (that was a common joke with us, when someone would rave about some new lame band we knew we'd hate we'd say--"Taint no webb pierce"), Don Gibson, etc.

Did I mention Link Wray? If you study Quine's playing he loves chords and chord substitution. Much of this is taken from Link Wray and given a sick twist.

Did you know the solo on Blank Generation quotes both "Jailhouse Rock" and Jack Scott's "Baby She's Gone"?

He dug Elvis's early stuff, Buddy Holly, Jody Reynolds, Sanford Clark (and his guitar player Al Casey).

He hated Duane Eddy and when the Constellations would cover "Rebel Rouser" he would refuse to modulate when the verse came around. He was a stubborn guy.