During his nearly 40-year tenure with Folkways Records, Moe Asch, the company's founder, amassed a catalog of almost 2,200 recordings that had expanded the definition of American folk music and introduced listeners to sounds from every corner of the world. This biography provides a complete look at this iconoclastic figure. 24 photos.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Folkways Records founder Moe Asch's significance as a curator of America's folk music can hardly be overstated. As this thoroughly researched biography reveals, Asch initially saw himself as a businessman, not a folklorist. It just so happened his success as the latter is what made him a name long before he saw any real reward for his efforts. That Asch, a would-be inventor, ranks among archivists Sam Charters (who initially worked for Asch) and John and Alan Lomax in importance is a consequence of two folk giants who recorded for his Folkways label early on; the volumes of Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly recordings preserved by Folkways remains Asch's legacy. If Guthrie and Asch were to wrangle on occasion, Goldsmith points out, their mutual respect was as foreign to the music business of that period as it would be today. The same can be said of the relationship between the loud Asch and the quiet eccentric Harry Smith, compiler of the labels' six-volume Anthology of American Folk Music, recently reissued to much ado. Music fans in search of the next big thing will have little use for Asch. But folkies, young and old alike, who waited for Smith's set on CD, or were thankful for a reissue of Bahamian guitarist Joseph Spence or Southern Child ballads, owe much to the Yiddish writer Sholem Asch's son. His legacy may often have been born of another's art, but it was no less a piece with his own aesthetic vision.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
One of the most important figures in American folk music probably never picked up a guitar. Yet Moe Asch (1905^-86), founder of Folkways Records, was instrumental in popularizing and preserving America's musical traditions. During its 40-year history, Folkways released nearly 2,200 recordings by a roster of artists that constitutes a folk music who's who, starting with Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, and Pete Seeger. Reflecting Asch's socialist convictions and idealism, Folkways disdained commercial considerations. Reflecting his eclectic tastes, Folkways also recorded jazz musicians Art Tatum and Coleman Hawkins, poet Langston Hughes, and avant-gardist John Cage. As son of the noted Jewish novelist Sholem Asch, Asch had an interesting background, and he was always eccentric (cantankerous, emotionally stunted, socially inept). Still, Goldsmith has a hard time making the early part of this biography come alive, perhaps because it wasn't until Asch was 34 that his work in radio electronics led him to start recording. Goldsmith's thorough, sometimes ponderous book reveals the vision that underlies Asch's monumental legacy of recordings. Gordon Flagg
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