In 1949, immigrant recording engineer Moses Asch embarked on a lifelong project: documenting the world of sound produced by mankind, via a small record label called Folkways Records.
By the time of his death in 1986, he had amassed an archive of over 2,200 LPs and thousands of hours of tapes; so valuable was this collection that it was purchased by the Smithsonian Institute. Folkways Records is an account of how he built this business, working against all odds, to create a landmark in the history of American music.
While he loved music—recording some of America’s greatest folk songs by the likes of Pete Seeger and Lead Belly—Moses Asch was obsessed with capturing anything that qualified as sound.
The founder of Folkway Records believed auditory experience was the very tapestry of life. In addition to folk music from around the world, he recorded sounds as diverse as train whistles, typewriters, croaking frogs and the street life of London.
Asch later bequeathed his entire collection of recordings to the Smithsonian Institution, where it became Smithsonian Folkways, one of the most vital and valuable repositories of recorded sound on the planet. Before his death, Asch also donated a copy of the collection to the U of A, where his son Michael was an anthropologist. It was named the Moses and Frances Asch Collection of Folkways Records, under the auspices of what was later branded folkwaysAlive!
Marion Distler Folkways President
Folkways Records, of which Miss Distler was president, had much to do with preserving the authentic folk music that has re‐entered the mainstream of American culture in the last few years.
Miss Distler was born here. After graduating from Hunter College just before World War II she went to work as a secretary at Asch Records, a pioneer folk‐music company founded by Moses Asch.
During the war Asch Records was merged with Disc Records and in 1947 the company went bankrupt. Miss Distler bought the assets for $6,000 and, with Mr. Asch, founded the Folkways Records and Service Corporation. She became the president of the concern and Mr. Asch was the director.
The partners began a race against acculturation, trying to preserve the authentic music of America and other countries before it was flattened out and homogenized by contact with the mass‐produced music of the radio and other media. They found the long‐playing record, just coming into use, a great aid in their endeavor.
Outlet for Singers
They also wanted to provide an outlet for such singers as Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston and Huddie Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly. Miss Distler became the friend and adviser of these and other singers.
In the early days of the company, business was not brisk. Miss Distler and Mr. Asch, the only employes, each made about $25 a week from record sales. Subsidies from foundations, record dealers and other record companies kept their heads above water.
They ran the company themselves, often doing the recording, packing the records, and taking them to the post office. In about 1950, the company began breaking even. In the last few years sales have risen greatly with the revival of interest in folk music.
The first four Folkways records illustrate the breadth of the catalog. They were the Cult Music of Cuba, the Music of the American Indian, the American Square Dance and the first volume of a documentary history of jazz.
That brand has now been put out to pasture, mainly because it became difficult for both the Smithsonian Institution and the U of A to continue meeting its partnership obligations under the pressures of a rapidly changing music industry. But the collection and the research it inspired are anything but retired, said the director of a new research initiative called Sound Studies.
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