The Evie Quarles Collection was gifted to the LaBudde Special Collections in May 2013. Inclusive dates are 1990-2008, with the bulk of the material ranging in date from 1997-2002. The collection includes programs, promotional material, miscellaneous ephemera, various blues publications,news clippings,and musical CDs, most of which are housed in the Marr Sound Archives. One jewel of this collection is Quarles’ book manuscript, Journey to the Blues. To illuminate that experience follows an assemblage of 800 plus black and white photographs which take you along on that journey, the likes of where you’ve never been before. Her photography of black & white images create a compelling depiction of her love and passion for the epic American art form known as the Blues.

For any researcher or archivist, it doesn’t get any better than this. Each photograph has been meticulously labeled with dates, names; locations and events. The atmosphere is upclose and personal with individuality and character caught on camera. To have such pristine historical documentation captured for future generations is a privilege to be well treasured.

An addendum to the Evie Quarles Collection was donated by Quarles in March 2016. It consists primarily of photograph negatives taken by Quarles of a variety of artists at a number of venues, mostly in the greater Kansas City area. There are also Quarles’s own meticulous notes on many of the photo sheets providing specific dates and other information about the photographs.Contained here also are posters and flyers from Quarles’s personal collection, many of them autographed and from events where Quarles took photographs.