LANSING — You can forgive Joe Kimble if he can’t pick a favorite from his eclectic collection of blues and rock and roll art and memorabilia.
He’s spent much of his adult life acquiring it, piece by piece, and there’s a lot of cool stuff there.
There are posters signed by icons Chuck Berry, Dr. John and James Cotton. All of the Ann Arbor Blues Festival posters from the late 1960s and early 1970s. An original painting of the Beatles from their final photo session in August 1969 and pieces signed by the Funk Brothers, the famous Motown Records backing band. Not to mention items featuring Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Eminem (made from Michigan license plates), the East Lansing Art Fair and a poster signed by Pinetop Perkins, Muddy Waters’ piano player, to mention only a few.
“It goes back to when I was in law school,” said Kimble, professor emeritus at Cooley Law School. “You don’t start out to be a collector. You just go to art fairs, keep your eyes open, go to concerts and pick up a poster here and there.”
As of this week, he figures there are at least 260 pieces in his collection, at least some of which are hanging on the walls at Cooley, where he taught for about 35 years. On Sunday, he’ll conduct tours at the school. There may or may not be room for an 11 a.m. tour because demand was strong, he said. Reservations are needed. They can be made by email at kimblej@cooley.edu.
Kimble is best known as an educator who has long championed plain writing in the legal field. He’s finishing his fifth legal book and has written two children’s books, including “Mr. Mouthful Learns His Lesson.”
Kimble was a staff attorney for the Michigan Supreme Court and the Michigan Court of Appeals and later practiced law in Flint, according to his bio sheet at Cooley, where he started as a full-time faculty member in 1984.
He has lectured around the world on legal writing and was a drafting consultant to the Sixth Circuit Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions and the Michigan Committee on Standard Criminal Jury Instructions, as well as the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, according to the bio sheet. He also led the redrafting of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Federal Rules of Evidence.
Kimble is a founding director of the Center for Plain Language and was on the board of the Legal Writing Institute.
Among his national and international awards are the Burton Award for Reform in Law in 2007 and 2011, the John W. Reed Lawyer Legacy Award from the state bar and a lifetime achievement award from the Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research of the Association of American Law Schools.
Kimble also has been recognized as a “Plain English Champion” by the Plain English Campaign in England.
His blues and rock memorabilia collection includes original artwork, concert posters, sculptures and other types of pieces, some of them signed by the artists. Artists from the Lansing area and elsewhere in Michigan are represented.
There’s a unique, 6-foot guitar made out of slate, a metallic poster for the 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival and a cover for the Band’s “Brown Album,” signed by all band members.
This is the third year he’s done pre-arranged tours.
“Each time, we’ve had big demand,” he said.
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Public gets rare look at Michigan attorney’s eclectic collection of rock, blues art
Reporting by Ken Palmer, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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