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Folkways Records is a record label
Record label

In the music industry, a record label can be a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of recorded sound and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the Record producer, manufacturing, distribution , marketing and promotion, and enforcement of copyright protec...
 that documents folk and world music. It is owned by the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its Financial endowment, contributions, and profits from its shops and its magazine....
.

Folkways Records & Service Co. was founded by Moses Asch and Marian Distler in 1948
1948 in music

Events*Aldeburgh Festival is founded by Benjamin Britten, Eric Crozier and Peter Pears.*Al Jolson is voted the "Most Popular Male Vocalist" in 1948 by a Variety poll...
 in New York City
New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
. Asch sought to record and document sound from the entire world. From 1948 until Asch's death in 1986, Folkways Records released 2,168 albums. The albums are very diverse in content including traditional and contemporary music from around the world; spoken word, poetry, and multi-lingual instructional recordings; and field recordings of communities, individuals, and natural sounds.






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Folkways Records is a record label
Record label

In the music industry, a record label can be a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of recorded sound and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the Record producer, manufacturing, distribution , marketing and promotion, and enforcement of copyright protec...
 that documents folk and world music. It is owned by the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its Financial endowment, contributions, and profits from its shops and its magazine....
.

History

The Folkways Records & Service Co. was founded by Moses Asch and Marian Distler in 1948
1948 in music

Events*Aldeburgh Festival is founded by Benjamin Britten, Eric Crozier and Peter Pears.*Al Jolson is voted the "Most Popular Male Vocalist" in 1948 by a Variety poll...
 in New York City
New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
. Asch sought to record and document sound from the entire world. From 1948 until Asch's death in 1986, Folkways Records released 2,168 albums. The albums are very diverse in content including traditional and contemporary music from around the world; spoken word, poetry, and multi-lingual instructional recordings; and field recordings of communities, individuals, and natural sounds. It was also an early proponent of the singers and songwriters, such as Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an United States singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, Traditional music and children's songs, ballads and improvised works....
, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an United States folk singer, and a key figure in the mid-20th century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 50s as a member of The Weavers, most notably the 1950 recording of Leadbelly's "Goodnight, Irene" that topped the charts f...
, and Leadbelly
Leadbelly

Huddie William Ledbetter was an United States folk blues musician, notable for his clear and forceful singing, his virtuosity on the twelve string guitar, and the rich songbook of folk standards he introduced....
, who formed the center of the American folk music revival.

The label became very influential on a generation of folk singers
Folk music

Folk music can have a number of different meanings, including:* Traditional music: The original meaning of the term "folk music" was synonymous with the term "Traditional music", also often including World Music and Roots music; the term "Traditional music" was given its more specific meaning to distinguish it from the other definition...
 because of its release of a great number of old-time
Old-time music

Old-time music is a form of North American folk music, with roots in the folk music of many countries, including England, Scotland, Ireland and Africa....
 recordings by re-discovered performers from the 1920s and 1930s like Dock Boggs
Dock Boggs

Moran Lee "Dock" Boggs was an influential Old-time music singer, songwriter and banjo player. His style of banjo playing, as well as his singing, is considered a unique combination of Appalachian folk music and African-American blues....
 and Clarence Ashley
Clarence Ashley

"Tom" Clarence Ashley was an United States of American clawhammer banjo player, guitarist and singer. He began performing at medicine shows in the Appalachia region as early as 1911, and gained initial fame in the late 1920s as both a solo recording artist and as a member of various string bands....
, as well as contemporary performers like the New Lost City Ramblers
New Lost City Ramblers

The New Lost City Ramblers is a contemporary Old-time music string band that formed in New York City in 1958 during the Roots revival. The founding members of the Ramblers, or NLCR, are Mike Seeger, John Cohen , and Tom Paley....
. The Anthology of American Folk Music
Anthology of American Folk Music

The Anthology of American Folk Music is a LP album compilation released in 1952 in music by Folkways Records , comprising eighty-four American folk music, blues music and country music recordings that were originally issued from 1927 to 1932....
 originally appeared on the Folkways label. Folkways was also one of the earliest companies to release albums of world music
World music

The term world music includes Traditional music of any culture that are created and played by indigenous musicians or that are "closely informed or guided by indigenous music of the regions of their origin," including Western World music ....
, including the Music of the World's Peoples collection edited by Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell

Henry Cowell was an United States composer, music theory, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. His contribution to the world of music was summed up by Virgil Thomson, writing in the early 1950s:...
. They also released many spoken word albums, and other unusual repertoire. The albums always came with a pull-out leaflet containing extensive sleeve notes.

Smithsonian

The Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the Capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790....
 acquired Asch's Folkways recordings and business files after his death in 1986. This acquisition was initiated by Ralph Rinzler
Ralph Rinzler

Ralph Rinzler was the co-founder of the annual Folk Life Festival on the Mall every summer in Washington, D.C., where he worked as a curator for American art, music, and folk culture at the Smithsonian Institution....
, of the Smithsonian, before Asch's death and completed by the Asch Family to ensure the sounds and artists would be preserved for future generations. As a result, it was agreed to continue Asch's policy that all of the 2,168 titles would stay in print indefinitely regardless of market sales. The Smithsonian Folkways website and the Smithsonian Global Sound
Smithsonian Global Sound

Smithsonian Global Sound is the digital archive project of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage . Its stated mission is to preserve and disseminate a wide range of the world's music....
 website use the internet to make the recordings available as streaming samples, DRM-free digital downloads in MP3 and lossless FLAC format, and on CDs via mail order.

Asch also donated a complete set of the Folkways recordings to the University of Alberta
University of Alberta

The University of Alberta is a Public university research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the top universities in Canada....
; FolkwaysAlive, a joint initiative between the University and the Smithsonian, is involved in digitization and archiving of the collection as well as maintaining a research center and sponsoring student research scholarships and an annual concert series.

Since acquiring Folkways, the Smithsonian has expanded Asch's collection by adding several other record labels, including Cook
Cook Records

Cook Records was a record label founded by Emory Cook . Cook was an audio engineer and inventor who used his Sounds of our Times and Cook Laboratories record labels to demonstrate his philosophy about sound, his recording equipment, and his manufacturing techniques....
, Monitor
Monitor Records

Monitor Records is a Hong Kong-based music shop selling various rare and alternative CDs and music items. Monitor Records is also a distributor of Hong Kong indie bands and independent musicians such as the Pancake, Elf Fatima and Alok....
, Fast Folk, Dyer-Bennet
Dyer-Bennet Records

Richard Dyer-Bennet , a major figure in the folk music revival of the 1940s-1970s, performed English ballads and European and American folk songs, blending indigenous rural and traditional materials with a unique musicality and urban artistry....
, and Paredon). They have also released over 300 new recordings.

The mission statement of Smithsonian Folkways states that their mission "is the legacy of Moses Asch, who founded Folkways Records in 1948 to document 'people's music.'" They "are dedicated to supporting cultural diversity
Cultural diversity

Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. There is a general consensus among mainstream anthropologists that humans first emerged in Africa about two million years ago ....
 and increased understanding among peoples through the documentation, preservation, and dissemination of sound", and that "musical and cultural diversity contributes to the vitality and quality of life throughout the world." By making these recordings available, they intend "strengthen people's engagement with their own cultural heritage
Cultural heritage

Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical Cultural artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations....
 and to enhance their awareness and appreciation of the cultural heritage of others."

See also

  • List of record labels
    List of record labels

    This is a list of notable record labels.Owing to the large number of entries, the list has been divided by the first letter of the label's name, with labels starting with a number added to this page:...


External links

  • (a joint venture with the WYPR
    WYPR

    WYPR is a public radio station that services the Baltimore, Maryland metropolitan area. The station broadcasts on 88.1 MHz on the FM radio. The station is simulcast in the Frederick, Maryland and Hagerstown, Maryland area on WYPF and in the Ocean City, Maryland area on WYPO ....
     radio network)