More than 35 years ago, Dennis Newhall began his radio broadcasting career in Sacramento. From the campus station at Sacramento State University to defunct Bay Area and Sacramento stations, Newhall has a varied connection with famed rock performers — the Grateful Dead to Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix to Santana.

Newhall, therefore, is the ideal person for his unofficial title as the curator of Sacramento Rock and Radio Museum.

The museum comprises the more than 1,200 items — rock concert posters, billboards, radios and other memorabilia of the era — that decorate Nakamoto Productions at 907 20th Street. It debuted in the spring of 2000.

Newhall, 55, a media producer and local broadcaster, began collecting rock posters as a boy in West Sacramento. But his collection had been boxed for nearly 25 years — until his employer moved into the former location of the long ago defunct Oasis Ballroom, a midtown Sacramento concert hall. Decorating the walls of the location with framed rock posters was a natural choice of motif.

"People come in, see the posters and say, 'I had all of that stuff and I threw it away,' " said Newhall. "Or they say, 'My Mom threw them away, or they got watered damaged, or my first wife has them. It's the same reasons over and over. You'd just get to a point where you'd say, you don't need that stuff anymore."

While keeping the same theme, the company's three recording studios were renamed from studio "1, 2 and 3" to "AM, FM and "Rock." The AM room is primarily is primarily rare handbills, posters and charts from KXOA and KROY, the two stations where rock was first played in Sacramento; the FM room is filled with print work from KZAP and KSFM, the stations that brought FM rock to
Sacramento; and the Rock room is where the rarest posters are showcased from "when the top-40 scene turned into the club-psychchedelic-San Francisco scene."

"Basically, it's music and advertising and that's what we're all in," said Newhall. "So this is a good reflection of that, and it's fun to look at -- still."

As the "museum curator," Newhall increased personal collection with various donations and searches on Internet auction sites. He bought a local collection for $100. The artist who made much of the original artwork for the Oasis Ballroom, a long-time friend of Newhall's donated about 50 items. Other displayed handbills and posters are loaned items.

According to Newhall, the four most collectible bands' posters are: Cream, The Grateful Dead, The Doors and Jimi Hendrix. When Newhall rediscovered his collection its contents included a rare poster of Cream and The Grateful Dead when the two bands appeared at Memorial Auditorium - the only time the two famed groups played together.

"The collection is mine or things that I've bought or things that have been given to us by people who like what we are doing," Newhall explained. "Because of all those ways of getting things, the collection has gotten fairly complete."

Because of Nakamoto Productions midtown location, the company discovered its "museum," was near other businesses involved with the monthly Second Saturday art celebration.

When other new businesses began to show art, Nakamoto Productions became the "epicenter of the Second Saturday Art Walk." As such, the Sacramento Rock and Radio Museum is now part of the Second Saturday art tour between April and October. Private tours for groups are also available.

"We were so proud of the collection and thought it was so cool, we are now going to be open for people to look," said Newhall. "We're a commercial recording place, not a music recording place. But we've been squeezing little bands into the place so we can have live music."