Brian Rust died yesterday at the age of 88.

Never heard of him?

He was the pioneer and many would say the greatest discographer ever. He started out working for the record library of the BBC but became a compiler of records about records and published many comprehensive discographies covering virtually the entire era of disc recording of American and British jazz, dance, swing and popular music.  Almost all who use facts about the popular and jazz recordings rely on his work to a marked degree.  Just Google Brian Rust and discography and you will get an idea of the width and breadth of his work. His original volumes are much sought after and have been known to fetch extraordinary prices. The software I use for my discography of Bing is named 'Brian' in homage to him, and produces reports in exactly the way originated by him in his early (wholly non-computerised) work.