NEO Sound (formerly known as the Northeast Ohio Popular Music Archives, or NEOPMA) is a Rock Hall initiative to preserve the history of rock & roll in Northeast Ohio. Through ]community programming for Scan Days and Home Movie Day, the Library & Archives has also acquired a group of archival collections and library materials that focus on the popular music, musicians, radio stations, record labels, recording studios, music venues, concert promoters, booking agencies, and music publishers in Northeast Ohio. These collections contain personal papers, correspondence, photographs, song manuscripts, business records, posters, and rare audio and video recordings, as well as books, dissertations, magazines and journals, commercial audio and video recordings, and sheet music.
Northeast Ohio played a significant role in the history of popular music. Beginning with WJW-AM deejay Alan Freed’s radio show, his coining of the phrase "rock and roll” to refer to the musical style, and his staging of the earliest rock and roll concerts, Cleveland continued to play an important musical role during the 1960s-1970s through the promotion of significant national artists and the development of FM radio. The region as a whole has produced seminal performers in rock music, including the Raspberries, Joe Walsh, Devo, Pere Ubu, the Dead Boys, and Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders, and the local music scene continues to thrive through acts like Broccoli Samurai, Herzog, Lighthouse and the Whaler, and Wesley Bright and the Hi-lites.
NEO Sound is advised by a group of individuals with extensive knowledge of local music history and archives, representing different aspects of the music scene and the business surrounding it, including the owner and operator of the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern Cindy Barber; Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sponsorship Sales for Live Nation Cleveland and longtime Belkin Productions executive Barry Gabel; local photographers Anastasia Pantsios and Randy Norfus; Chris Butler of the Waitresses, Tin Huey, and 15-60-75 (The Numbers Band); Cleveland musician, tour manager, show producer and more Marky Ray; local musician Dave McDougald, and local musician and former Rock Hall Artist in Residence Marcus Smith; with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's Library & Archives staff, including Andy Leach, Jennie Thomas, Justin Seidler, Lyndsey Godwin-Kresge, Crystal Matjasic, Laura Maidens, Alex Kaufmann, and Maggie Ignasiak.
The materials listed below are just a sampling of what we have in our collections. Researchers can access information about NEO Sound archival collections here, and can browse our NEO Sound library materials here.





Images (L to R): Record Rendezvous owner Leo Mintz, flyer for Cleveland's Dead Boys, postcard from Patti Smith on tour in Cleveland, flyer for Cleveland's New Salem Witch Hunters, Cleveland photographer Jimmy Baynes with Louis Armstrong
Attack on Memory
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Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children
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Boddie Recording Company Cleveland, Ohio
El Camino
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Everyone Wants the Honey but not the Sting
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The Modern Dance
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The O'Jays' Collectors Items
Only Survivor: The MCA Years
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The Pink Album...Plus!
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Rocket Redux
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We Care So You Don't Have To
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The Damnation of Adam Blessing : Exhibit-A
Devo: The Complete Truth about De-evolution
Devo Live
Devo Live 1980
Return of the Living Dead Boys
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Live : Concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Urgh! A Music War
The Alan Freed Story
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Cheetah Chrome : A Dead Boy's Tale : From the Front Lines of Punk Rock
The Cramps
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Diary of a Punk
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Overnight Sensation : The Story of the Raspberries
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Pretty Hate Machine
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Sound Art : Beyond Music, Between Categories
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Home Movie Day is a celebration of home movies, amateur filmmaking, and the local music community. The Library & Archives held official Home Movie Day screenings and collected material for the events in 2018, 2019, and 2024.
Find more by searching "Home Movie Day" in the catalog!
1950s Radio in Color : The Lost Photographs of Deejay Tommy Edwards
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The Buzzard : Inside the Glory Days of WMMS and Cleveland Rock Radio, a Memoir
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Cleveland Jazz History
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Cleveland's Gospel Music
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Cleveland Rocks: The Birthplace of Rock and Roll
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Discothèque Dances
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Metal, Rock, and Jazz : Perception and the Phenomenology of Musical Experience
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Rhythm & Blues in Cleveland, 1955 Edition
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Sh-boom! The Explosion of Rock 'n' Roll, 1953-1968
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As one of the country’s first daily newspaper rock-music reporters, Jane Scott (May 3, 1919 - July 4, 2011) diligently covered the music scene from the most obscure local bands to stadium headliners. Over the course of her 40+ year career with The Plain Dealer, Scott covered every major rock concert in Cleveland and was on a first name basis with many stars. The Jane Scott Papers include her vast library of books, periodicals, scores, and audiovisual materials, as well as her archives of research files, clippings, photographs, memorabilia, and concert ephemera.
Scan Days were funded by a Common Heritage grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 2016-2017.
Find more by searching "Scan Day" in the catalog!
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