Jeff Sewald donates 60 music interviews to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker Jeff Sewald has given the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 60 of his audio interviews with major music stars. The archive in Cleveland now holds the original cassettes, digitized copies and related articles, preserving decades-old material that was once at risk of decay.

Why it matters: - Jeff Sewald’s donation preserves rare first-person interviews with major artists before the original cassette tapes deteriorated further. - The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame archive in Cleveland now has audio and written material that adds primary-source context to music history. - The collection gives researchers and fans access to conversations that capture how artists spoke about their work in real time.

What happened: - Jeff Sewald gifted 60 audio interviews with musical artists to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. - The interviews were recorded during Sewald’s music-beat coverage in Pittsburgh from 1984 to 1991. - Sewald stored the cassettes at home for decades before deciding in 2025 to have them digitized and audio-engineered. - The archive now includes the original cassettes, fully digitized audio replicas and articles drawn from the interviews.

The details: - The collection includes interviews with Frank Zappa, Graham Nash, Tony Bennett, Huey Lewis, John Denver, Tom Jones, Gregg Allman, John Waite, Gloria Estefan, Johnny Ramone, Liza Minnelli, Warren Zevon, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Ted Nugent. - Sewald said he had long wondered why he was holding on to the tapes and wanted others to enjoy the voices and learn from the artists’ reflections. - Sewald said the interviews helped shape his development as a writer and gave him a way to build his voice. - The interviews were originally captured on cassettes that had become increasingly fragile over time.

Between the lines: - The donation turns a private personal archive into a public historical resource. - Digitization matters here because analog audio media can degrade, and preservation work can extend the life of interviews that would otherwise be lost. - The presence of both the audio and the resulting articles strengthens the archive’s value for journalism, scholarship and music history.

What’s next: - The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will maintain the materials in its archive for future access and preservation. - The preserved collection may support future research, exhibits or programming tied to Sewald’s interviews and the artists featured in them.

The bottom line: - Sewald’s gift saves a distinctive slice of music journalism and places it where fans and historians can use it for years to come.