Legacy Collection

The Legacy Collection or Legacy Series was a series of releases by Columbia Records (later, following a reorganization, called CBS Records) that combined LP records with books.

The Legacy Collection began in September 1960 with The American Revolution, which contained an LP and 62-page book about the American Revolutionary War.^[1] Items in the series were generally on historical subjects.^[2] The series was produced by Goddard Lieberson,^[3] who started it as a way to "document important periods and events in the history of our continent".^[4] When Columbia was reorganized in 1966, Legacy remained within Lieberson's remit when he took over as head of what was now called CBS Records, a division of CBS-Columbia Group.^[5]

The Badmen (1963), a collection for children about outlaws on the American frontier, combines recordings of American folk music and spoken word performance with a 70-page book.^[6] In 1965, Stanton Catlin and Carleton Beals shared the Grammy Award for Best Album Notes for Mexico.^[7] Mexico's book is in Spanish and English. The record has music by Carlos Chávez; some compositions are based on Spanish songs and others attempt to reconstruct Aztec music.^[8] The Irish Uprising (1966), about the Easter Rising, has a book with a foreword by Éamon de Valera and recordings of Irish ballads.^[9] John Fitzgerald Kennedy ... As We Remember Him includes a book reproducing photographs from John F. Kennedy's childhood and a recording of his mother Rose Kennedy.^[10] The Russian Revolution has a recording of Vladimir Lenin's voice.^[2]