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76-646: The Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label arose when the Smithsonian acquired a vast collection of recordings from Folkways Records, maintained by Moses Asch. The original 2,168 titles produced by Folkways Records now make up the bulk of the label's collection. In 1905, Moses "Moe" Asch was born in Poland. His father, Sholem Asch , a successful author, made enough money to move the family to Paris in 1912. In 1914, Sholem left Paris for work in New York City and,

152-539: A barbershop quartet since 1949, but left before finishing high school spending time in the Merchant Marine . His first professional gigs were playing tenor banjola, a wooden bodied combination of mandola and banjo, with various traditional jazz bands around New York City, of which he later observed: "We wanted to play traditional jazz in the worst way ... and we did!" But the trad jazz revival had already passed its prime, and Van Ronk turned to performing

228-571: A 12-volume set of his collected works. In 1932 he was awarded the Polish Republic 's Polonia Restituta decoration and was elected honorary president of the Yiddish PEN Club . In 1930, when Asch was at the height of his fame and popularity, he moved to Nice , then almost immediately moved back to Poland and spent months touring the countryside to do research for his next novel: Der tehilim-yid ( Salvation ). He then moved into

304-409: A cast that included the acclaimed Jewish immigrant actor Rudolph Schildkraut. Its run was cut short on March 6, when the entire cast, producer Harry Weinberger, and one of the owners of the theater were indicted for violating the state's Penal Code, and later convicted on charges of obscenity . Weinberger, who was also a prominent attorney, represented the group at the trial. The chief witness against

380-754: A chart-topping rock single for them in 1964, helping inaugurate the folk rock movement. Van Ronk received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers ( ASCAP ) in December 1997. Van Ronk was born in Brooklyn, New York City , to a family that was "mostly Irish, despite the Dutch ' Van ' name". He moved from Brooklyn to Queens around 1945 and began attending Holy Child Jesus Catholic School, whose students were mainly of Irish descent. He had been performing in

456-441: A co-production with Alexander Street Press . Smithsonian Folkways now offers the entire Folkways collection for digital download through its website, at $ 0.99 for most songs and $ 9.99 for most albums, available in both MP3 and FLAC format. In addition, Smithsonian Folkways distributes digitally via outlets such as iTunes and eMusic . In 2011 Smithsonian Folkways released a new jazz anthology to update their previous release,

532-489: A concert organized by Phil Ochs , alongside such other performers as his old friend Bob Dylan, to protest the overthrow of the democratic socialist government of Chile and to aid refugees from the U.S.-backed military junta led by Augusto Pinochet . After Ochs's suicide in 1976, Van Ronk joined the many performers who played at his memorial concert in the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden , playing his bluesy version of

608-587: A few months before his death. Van Ronk was married to Terri Thal in the 1960s, lived for many years with Joanne Grace, then married Andrea Vuocolo, with whom he spent the rest of his life. On February 10, 2002, Van Ronk died in a New York hospital of cardiopulmonary failure while undergoing postoperative treatment for colon cancer . He died before completing work on his memoirs, which were finished by his collaborator, Elijah Wald , and published in 2005 as The Mayor Of MacDougal Street . Van Ronk's guitar work, for which he credits Tom Paley as fingerpicking teacher,

684-537: A four-CD anthology and 124-page book exploring the power of music to bring people together, through various musical and social movements from across the United States and the world. The collection includes tracks from The Freedom Singers , Suni Paz , Clifton Chenier , and many others. In May 2019, Smithsonian Folkways released Jazz Fest: The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival , a five-disc, 136-page book and box set featuring 50 live tracks recorded live at

760-572: A head figure. Asch had no desire to take Peretz's place, moving to Bellevue, France after years and continuing to write regularly for Yiddish papers in the US and Poland. In Bellevue, he wrote his 1929–31 trilogy Farn Mabul. ( Before the Flood , translated as Three Cities ) describes early 20th century Jewish life in Saint Petersburg , Warsaw, and Moscow. Ever the traveller, Asch took many trips to

836-606: A house outside of Nice and rebuilt it as the "Villa Shalom," with luxuries such as a study facing the sea, a swimming pool, a bowling green, and an orchard. In 1935, he visited America at the Joint Committee's request to raise funds for Jewish relief in Europe. Asch's next work, Bayrn Opgrunt (1937, translated as The Precipice ), is set in Germany during the hyperinflation of the 1920s. Dos Gezang fun Tol ( The Song of

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912-576: A large-format, 200-page book. In 2003, Smithsonian Folkways, in conjunction with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress , began a project called "Save Our Sounds" that aims at preserving the sounds vital to American history which are deteriorating, such as Thomas Edison 's recordings made on wax cylinders and others done on acetate discs in the early 20th century. The Save America's Treasures program initiated by

988-576: A lesbian scene. I. L. Peretz famously said of the play after reading it: "Burn it, Asch, burn it!" Instead, Asch went to Berlin to pitch it to director Max Reinhardt and actor Rudolph Schildkraut , who produced it at the Deutsches Theater. God of Vengeance opened on March 19, 1907 and ran for six months, and soon was translated and performed in a dozen European languages. The play was first brought to New York City by David Kessler in 1907. The audience mostly came for Kessler, and they booed

1064-437: A majority gentile area to get to a lake where he loved to swim, where he was once cornered by boys wielding sticks and dogs, who demanded he admit to killing "Christ"–which Asch did not, at the time, know to be a name for Jesus–or they would rip his coat. He admitted to killing Christ out of fear, but they beat him and tore his coat anyway. Asch never lost his fear of dogs from that incident. In his adolescence, after moving from

1140-403: A minute, he resembled an unmade bed strewn with books, record jackets, pipes, empty whiskey bottles, lines from obscure poets, finger picks, and broken guitar strings. He was [Dylan]'s first New York guru. Van Ronk was a walking museum of the blues. Through an early interest in jazz, he had gravitated toward black music—its jazz pole, its jug-band and ragtime center, its blues bedrock.... His manner

1216-810: A nearby village, where he became a Hebrew teacher. After a few months there, he received a more liberal education at Włocławek , where he supported himself as a letter writer for the illiterate townspeople. It is in Włocławek where he became enamored with the work of prominent Yiddish writer I. L. Peretz . It is also where he began writing. He attempted to master the short story and wrote in Hebrew. What he wrote there would later be revised, translated into Yiddish, and ultimately, launch his career. In 1899, he moved to Warsaw where he met I. L. Peretz and other young writers under Peretz's mentorship such as David Pinski , Abraham Reisen , and Hersh Dovid Nomberg . Influenced by

1292-703: A popular stereotype at the time. Other intellectuals criticized the writing itself, claiming that the second act was beautifully written but the first and third acts failed to support it. God of Vengeance was published in English-language translation in 1918. In 1922, it was staged in New York City at the Provincetown Theatre in Greenwich Village , and moved to the Apollo Theatre on Broadway on February 19, 1923, with

1368-634: A prominent role in the American Jewry's relief efforts in Europe for Jewish war victims. He was a founding member of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee . After a series of pogroms in Lithuania in 1919, Asch visited the country as representative of the Joint Committee, and he suffered a nervous breakdown due to the shock of the horrors he witnessed. His Kiddush ha-Shem (1919), chronicling

1444-645: A rabbi and sent him to the town's best religious school (or cheder ), where the wealthy families sent their children. There, he spent most of his childhood studying the Talmud, and would later study the Bible and the Haggadah on his own time. Asch grew up in a majority Jewish town, so he grew up believing Jews were the majority in the rest of the world as well. In Kutno, Jews and gentiles mostly got along, barring some tension around religious holidays. He had to sneak through

1520-425: A short time in the 1960s). Van Ronk's trademark stoneware jug of Tullamore Dew was frequently seen on stage next to him in his early days. Critic Robert Shelton described Van Ronk as "the musical mayor of MacDougal Street" - ..."a tall, garrulous, hairy man of three quarters, or, more accurately, three fifths Irish descent. Topped by light brownish hair and a leonine beard which he smoothed down several times

1596-429: A short time. Asch received recordings from Granz of an up-and-coming pianist named Nat Cole , which he decided to issue on a record in fall 1946. He invested a large amount of money in publicity and advertising, for the first time attempting to break into the pop charts. Due to a snowstorm, shipping was delayed past the holiday rush, causing Asch Records to fall into bankruptcy . As one of the terms of his bankruptcy, Asch

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1672-499: A writer but also openly attacked him for promoting Christianity . He subsequently started writing for a communist paper, Morgen frayhayt , leading to repeated questioning by the House Committee on Un-American Activities . In 1953, Chaim Lieberman published The Christianity of Sholem Asch, a scathing criticism of Asch and his Christological trilogy that disgusted even some of Asch's strongest critics. Lieberman's book, and

1748-432: A year later, sent for his family. The experience at Ellis Island was traumatic for 10-year-old Moe, and, based on his own account, the memory was seared into his mind. Sholem believed in educating his fellow man through his literature, and Moe showed that same passion through his chosen career of audio engineering. In the mid-1920s, Asch studied radio engineering in Germany, a center for the new science. When he returned to

1824-707: Is a 2015 play written by Paula Vogel that recounts the controversy of God of Vengeance . It opened on Broadway at the Cort Theater in April 2017, directed by Rebecca Taichman . Asch attended the Czernowitz Yiddish Language Conference of 1908, which declared Yiddish to be "a national language of the Jewish people." He traveled to Palestine in 1908 and the United States in 1910, a place about which he felt deeply ambivalent. In

1900-560: Is engaged in several projects dedicated to increasing the awareness and use of its recordings, as well as the preservation of them. As part of their mission in spreading the sounds of the world, Smithsonian Folkways has made the recordings of their archives available digitally in various ways, in addition to retail distribution of CDs (some titles Manufactured on Demand ) and LPs. In February 2005, Smithsonian Folkways launched Smithsonian Global Sound , an online MP3 music store, similar to programs such as Apple's iTunes . The entire collection

1976-561: Is mentioned in David Bowie 's 2013 song ‘(You Will) Set the World on Fire' on The Next Day album and was mentioned among the dead musicians and recording artists in the song "Mirror Door" by the Who in 2006 on the album Endless Wire . In 2004, a section of Sheridan Square , where Barrow Street meets Washington Place, was renamed Dave Van Ronk Street in his memory. Van Ronk was awarded

2052-509: Is noteworthy for both syncopation and precision. Revealing similarities to Mississippi John Hurt 's, Van Ronk's main influence was the Reverend Gary Davis , who conceived the guitar as "a piano around his neck." Van Ronk took this pianistic approach and added a harmonic sophistication adapted from the band voicings of Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington . Van Ronk was among the first to adapt traditional jazz and ragtime to

2128-498: Is unknown). Sholem was the fourth of the ten children that Moszek and Frajda Malka had together. Moszek would spend all week on the road and return home every Friday in time for the Sabbath. He was known to be a very charitable man who would dispense money to the poor. Born into a Hasidic family, Sholem Asch received a traditional Jewish education. Considered the designated scholar of his siblings, his parents dreamed of him becoming

2204-655: The American Federation of Musicians ' 1942 strike against major record labels, small labels such as Asch's filled the void in sales for distributors. The label grew and became more successful through deals with other producers, including Norman Granz . This partnership proved successful, leading to the concept of recording live concerts. These recordings came close to Asch's vision of documenting "real" sound, and, because there were no studio fees, were less expensive to produce. Around this time, Asch began another record label, Disc Records , though this fell through in

2280-677: The Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), Asch initially wrote in Hebrew , but Peretz convinced him to switch to Yiddish. Asch's reputation was established in 1902 with his first book of stories, In a shlekhter tsayt ( In a Bad Time ). In 1903, he married Mathilde Shapiro, the daughter of the Polish-Jewish teacher and poet Menahem Mendel Shapiro . In 1904, Asch released one of his most well-known works, A shtetl , an idyllic portrait of traditional Polish-Jewish life. In January 1905, he released

2356-627: The McCarthy Hearings , led Asch and his wife to leave the US in 1953, whereafter they split their time between London (where their daughter lived), continental Europe, and Israel. Asch spent most of his last two years in Bat Yam near Tel Aviv , Israel, in a house that the mayor had invited him to build, but died in London at his desk writing. Due to his controversies, his funeral in London

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2432-691: The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in celebration of the festival's 50th anniversary. The collection includes music from Allen Toussaint , Professor Longhair , Dr. John , and The Neville Brothers . Also in May 2019, Smithsonian Folkways released Pete Seeger: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection in celebration of what would have been Pete Seeger 's one hundredth birthday. The anthology contains classic recordings, 20 previously unreleased tracks, historic live performances, and special collaborations from Pete Seeger's career, as well as six discs and

2508-569: The cheder to the House of Study, Sholem became aware of major social changes in popular Jewish thinking. New ideas and the Enlightenment were asserting themselves in the Jewish world. At his friend's house, Sholem would explore these new ideas by secretly reading many secular books, which led him to believe himself too worldly to become a rabbi. At age 17, his parents found out about this "profane" literature and sent him to live with relatives in

2584-471: The 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street ". Van Ronk's work ranged from old English ballads to blues , gospel , rock , New Orleans jazz , and swing . He was also known for performing instrumental ragtime guitar music, especially his transcription of "St. Louis Tickle" and Scott Joplin 's " Maple Leaf Rag ". Van Ronk was a widely admired avuncular figure in the Village, presiding over

2660-439: The 1973 Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz. The anthology includes 111 tracks on six discs, held within a 200-page compilation of historical essays, musical analyses, and contemporary photographs of the musicians. In 2012 Smithsonian Folkways released Woody At 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection , a 150-page large-format book with 3 CDs containing 57 tracks, including Woody Guthrie's most important recordings such as

2736-655: The Hebrew Bible and three on New Testament figures. Smaller groupings included works on the Holocaust and modern Israel. His work was not easily categorized, and straddled the lines between romanticism and realism, naturalism and idealism. Dave van Ronk David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002) was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City 's Greenwich Village scene in

2812-602: The Jewish relationship with the outside world. Some of his most frequent recurring themes were: man's faith, goodness, and generosity. He was repelled and intrigued by Christian violence, and inspired by Jewish martyrdom and survival. Asch reflected on cosmopolitan interests and concern for the people and conditions he encountered. His fiction can mostly be put into three categories: tales, novels and plays of Eastern European Jewish life (Polish mostly); tales and novels of Jewish life in America; five biblical novels: two on figures in

2888-744: The Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously by the World Folk Music Association in 2004. Joni Mitchell said that Van Ronk's rendition of her song " Both Sides Now " (which he called "Clouds") was her favorite version of the song. Van Ronk refused for many years to fly and never learned to drive (he took trains or buses or, when possible, recruited a girlfriend or young musician as his driver), and he declined to ever move from Greenwich Village for any extended period of time (having stayed in California for

2964-627: The Moses and Frances Asch Collection, part of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections housed in the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The recordings on other labels, including Folk-Legacy Records , Stinson Records , Paredon Records, Cook , Collector , Dyer Bennet, Fast Folk , Monitor , M.O.R.E., The Mickey Hart Collection, Arhoolie Records and Bobby Susser Songs For Children have since been added to

3040-508: The Orthodox papers. Even Yiddish intellectuals and the play's supporters had problems with the play's inauthentic portrayal of Jewish tradition, especially Yankl's use of the Torah, which they said Asch seemed to be using mostly for cheap effects; they also expressed concern over how it might stigmatize Jewish people who already faced much anti-Semitism. The association with Jews and sex work was

3116-414: The Smithsonian's annual Folklife Festival . Asch saw that the Smithsonian had the power to keep the collection alive and keep the sounds of the world in the people's hands. Asch stipulated one main condition: that every recording was to remain in print forever, regardless of its sales. It was the way that he began the label, and he felt that the people deserved to have the sounds of the world preserved. There

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3192-501: The Soviet Union, Palestine and the United States. He always held painters in high regard and formed close friendships with the like of Isaac Lichtenstein, Marc Chagall , Emil Orlik , and Jules Pascin . He spoke to the hundreds of mourners at Pascin's funeral after the painter died by suicide. Asch was a celebrated writer in his own lifetime. In 1920, in honor of his 40th birthday, a committee headed by Judah L. Magnes published

3268-659: The United States, he worked for various electronic firms before opening his own radio repair business, Radio Labs, during the Great Depression . In this business, Moe built equipment for radio stations and installed recorders for air use. Asch wrote in a 1961 article, "Forming one of the first independent record companies it was natural for me to want to record folk music and people's expression of their wants, needs and experiences." In 1940, Sholem invited his son with him to New Jersey to meet physicist and humanitarian Albert Einstein , who encouraged Moe to record and document

3344-619: The Valley ) is about the halutzim (Jewish-Zionist pioneers in Palestine), and reflects his 1936 visit to that region. Asch visited Palestine again in 1936. Then, in 1939, he returned to Villa Shalom for the last time. He delayed leaving Europe until the last possible moment, then reluctantly returned to the United States. On his second sojourn in the US, Asch first lived in Stamford, Connecticut, then moved to Miami Beach, where he stayed until

3420-765: The White House Millennium Council awarded a matching grant of $ 750,000 for the project. The goal of the project is to expose the nation to the need for sound preservation, and to protect the most important and "priceless" records from the combined collections. Smithsonian Folkways and its collection of labels have earned a variety of awards and honors including 7 Grammy Awards, one Latin Grammy award, 10 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards, and 19 Independent Music Awards. Sholem Asch Sholem Asch ( Yiddish : שלום אַש , Polish : Szalom Asz ; 1 November 1880 – 10 July 1957), also written Shalom Ash ,

3496-418: The anti-Jewish and anti-Polish Chmielnicki Uprising in mid-17th century Ukraine and Poland, is one of the earliest historical novels in modern Yiddish literature . In 1920, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Asch returned to Poland in 1923, visiting Germany frequently. The Yiddish literary circle hoped he would stay in Poland, because I. L. Peretz's death in 1915 had left them devoid of

3572-641: The blues he had stumbled across while shopping for jazz 78s by artists like the Reverend Gary Davis , Furry Lewis and Mississippi John Hurt . By about 1958, he was firmly committed to the folk-blues style, accompanying himself with his own acoustic guitar. He performed blues , jazz and folk music , occasionally writing his own songs but generally arranging the work of earlier artists and his folk revival peers. He became noted both for his large physical stature and for his expansive charisma which bespoke an intellectual, cultured gentleman of diverse talents. Among his many interests were cooking, science fiction (he

3648-510: The coffeehouse folk culture and acting as a friend to many up-and-coming artists by inspiring, assisting, and promoting them. Folk performers he befriended include Jim and Jean , Bob Dylan , Tom Paxton , Patrick Sky , Phil Ochs , Ramblin' Jack Elliott , and Joni Mitchell . Dylan recorded Van Ronk's arrangement of the traditional song " House of the Rising Sun " on his first album which The Animals would later cover and which would become

3724-542: The collection. After the creation of the collection in the Smithsonian Archives, only two full-time positions were funded. Rinzler recruited Anthony Seeger, well known in the ethnomusicology community as director of the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University , as director, and a full-time archivist, Jeff Place. The Smithsonian also stipulated a condition regarding the transfer: if they accepted

3800-630: The complete version of " This Land Is Your Land ", "Pretty Boy Floyd", "I Ain't Got No Home in This World Anymore", and "Riding in My Car". In 2015 Smithsonian Folkways released Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection , a five-CD, 140-page, large-format book featuring five hours of music including his classics “The Midnight Special,” “Irene,” “The Bourgeois Blues,” and 16 previously unreleased tracks. In February 2019, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings released The Social Power of Music ,

3876-540: The early 1950s. He offended Jewish sensibilities with his 1939–1949 trilogy, The Nazarene, The Apostle, and Mary, which dealt with New Testament subjects. Despite accusations of conversion, Asch remained proudly Jewish; he had written the trilogy not as a promotion of Christianity but as an attempt to bridge the gap between Jews and Christians. Much of his readership and the Jewish literary community, however, did not see it that way. His long-standing employer, New York Yiddish newspaper Forverts , not only dropped him as

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3952-476: The early blues and folk recordings from Folkways, such as Harry Smith's well-known Anthology of American Folk Music , fueled several generations of folk revivals, inspiring young musicians such as Dave van Ronk , Peter, Paul, and Mary , and Bob Dylan . In 1984, looking for someone to continue the Folkways Records collection after him, Asch found Ralph Rinzler , who was then artistic director of

4028-411: The expanding riot, Van Ronk said, "There were more people out there [outside the building] when I came out than when I went in. Things were still flying through the air, cacophony—I mean, just screaming and yelling, sirens, strobe lights, the whole spaghetti." The next day, he was arrested and later released on his own recognizance for having thrown a heavy object at a police officer. City records show he

4104-471: The first play of his incredibly successful play-writing career, Tsurikgekumen ( Coming Back ). Asch wrote the drama Got fun nekome ( God of Vengeance ) in the winter of 1906 in Cologne, Germany. It is about a Jewish brothel owner who attempts to become respectable by commissioning a Torah scroll and marrying off his daughter to a yeshiva student. Set in a brothel, the play includes Jewish prostitutes and

4180-595: The founder and head of Folkways Records , and Natan Asz/ Nathan Asch (1902, Warsaw – 1964, United States), also a writer. His grandson Michael Asch is an anthropologist , and his great-grandson, David Mazower, is a writer and a BBC Journalist. Many of Asch's father figures are inspired by his own father. Sholem was believed to have adopted much of his own philosophies from his father, such as his love for humanity and his concern for Jewish-Christian reconciliation. He summed up his father's faith as "love of God and love of neighbor". Asch often wrote two kinds of characters:

4256-427: The label, it would have to support itself through its sales. Seeger and Place had no experience running a record label, but took on the project. Though they could not retain all of Asch's business practices, they managed to preserve the essence of Folkways Records while creating the new label, Smithsonian Folkways. The label now relies on a small team of full-time staff, part-time staff, interns, and volunteers to continue

4332-515: The letter J is less popular than the letter S , you don't take it out of the dictionary." Folkways Records released over 2,000 recordings between the years 1949 and 1987, spanning many genres, including jazz , folk , classical , avant-garde , and world music. Over the years of Folkways Records, Asch recorded some of the biggest names in music, including Woody Guthrie , Lead Belly , Pete Seeger , Duke Ellington , James P. Johnson , Dizzy Gillespie , John Cage , and Charles Ives . Reissues of

4408-762: The mission of Smithsonian Folkways. In addition to its vast catalogue of historical recordings, Smithsonian Folkways has recently begun signing and releasing material from living artists. Current artists with albums on Smithsonian Folkways include Dom Flemons , folk trio Lula Wiles, Kaia Kater , Mariachi los Camperos , Los Texmaniacs , Our Native Daughters (artists Rhiannon Giddens , Leyla McCalla , Allison Russell , and Amythyst Kiah ), Anna & Elizabeth , and Elizabeth Mitchell (musician) . In 2019 they released an album from American composer and musician Laurie Anderson , Tibetan musician Tenzin Choegyal , and activist and composer Jesse Paris Smith. Smithsonian Folkways

4484-456: The new sounds of Dylan, Mitchell and Leonard Cohen . Dylan says of his impact: "I'd heard Van Ronk back in the Midwest on records and thought he was pretty great, copied some of his recordings phrase for phrase. [...] Van Ronk could howl and whisper, turn blues into ballads and ballads into blues. I loved his style. He was what the city was all about. In Greenwich Village, Van Ronk was king of

4560-480: The pious Jew and the burly worker. This was inspired by his family, as his brothers dealt with peasants and butchers and fit in with the hardy outdoor Jews of Kutno, which Asch had much pride in. His older half-brothers, on the other hand, were pious Hasidim. One of Asch's major goals in his writing was to articulate Jewish life, past and present. He placed the Jew at the center of his every work, along with an awareness of

4636-407: The play was Rabbi Joseph Silberman, who declared in an interview with Forverts : "This play libels the Jewish religion. Even the greatest anti-Semite could not have written such a thing". After a protracted battle, the conviction was successfully appealed. In Europe, the play was popular enough to be translated into German, Russian, Polish, Hebrew, Italian, Czech, Romanian and Norwegian. Indecent

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4712-480: The pursuit of a safe haven from the violence in Europe, he and his family moved to the United States in 1914, moving around New York City for a while before settling in Staten Island . In New York, he began to write for Forverts , the mass-circulation Yiddish daily that had also covered his plays, a job provided both income and an intellectual circle. Asch became increasingly active in public life and played

4788-493: The rest of the cast. The New York production sparked a major press war between local Yiddish papers, led by the Orthodox Tageplatt and even the secular Forverts . Orthodox papers referred to God of Vengeance as "filthy," "immoral," and "indecent," while radical papers described it as "moral," "artistic," and "beautiful". Some of the more provocative scenes in the production were changed, but it wasn't enough for

4864-455: The solo acoustic guitar with arrangements of such ragtime staples as "St. Louis Tickle", " The Entertainer ", "The Pearls" and " Maple Leaf Rag ". Van Ronk brought the blues style to Greenwich Village during the 1960s, while introducing the folk music world to the complex harmonies of Kurt Weill with his many Brecht and Weill interpretations. A traditional revivalist who moved with the times, Van Ronk brought old blues and ballads together with

4940-445: The sounds of the world, which Asch took to be his life calling. Soon after that meeting, in early 1940, Asch founded Asch Records with a small staff and studio located in downtown Manhattan, New York. He allowed any artist to come and record at no charge, in contrast to bigger studios that charged artists fees for using recording equipment. Because of his open-door policy, Asch attracted many young and/or unique "would-be" artists. Due to

5016-429: The spark of the contemporary gay rights movement. He had been dining at a neighboring restaurant and joined the riot against the police occupation of the club and was dragged from the crowd into the building by police deputy inspector Seymour Pine . The police slapped and punched Van Ronk to the point of near unconsciousness, handcuffed him to a radiator near the doorway, and decided to charge him for assault. Recalling

5092-599: The street, he reigned supreme". Van Ronk gave guitar lessons in Greenwich Village, including to Christine Lavin , David Massengill , Terre Roche and Suzzy Roche . He influenced his protégé Danny Kalb and the Blues Project . Van Ronk once said, "Painting is all about space, and music is all about time." The Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis follows a folk singer similar to Van Ronk, and incorporates anecdotes based on Van Ronk's life. He

5168-617: The traditional folk ballad " He Was A Friend Of Mine ". Although Van Ronk was less politically active in later years, he remained committed to anarchist and socialist ideals and was a dues-paying member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) almost until his death. Van Ronk was among 13 people arrested at the Stonewall Inn June 28, 1969, the night of the Stonewall Riots , which is widely credited as

5244-546: Was a Polish-Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist in the Yiddish language who settled in the United States. Asch was born Szalom Asz in Kutno , Congress Poland , to Moszek Asz (1825, Gąbin – 1905, Kutno), a cattle-dealer and innkeeper, and Frajda Malka, née Widawska (born 1850, Łęczyca ). Frajda was Moszek's second wife; his first wife Rude Shmit died in 1873, leaving him with either six or seven children (the exact number

5320-714: Was active for some time in science fiction fandom , referring to it as "mind rot", contributing to fanzines ), world history, and politics. During the 1960s he supported radical left-wing political causes and was a member of the Libertarian League and the Trotskyist American Committee for the Fourth International (ACFI, later renamed the Workers League ). In 1974, he appeared at "An Evening For Salvador Allende ",

5396-606: Was barred from starting another label. To get around this, in July 1948, Marian Distler, Asch's longtime assistant, became the president of a new label, Folkways Records and Service Corporation. Asch was hired as her "consultant", and Folkways Records was created. It was at this time that Asch created his plan for keeping all of the Folkways records in print, regardless of demand. In this way, he figured that demand, though small, would continue for decades. He famously remarked, "Just because

5472-568: Was charged with felony assault in the second degree and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of harassment, classified in 1969 as a violation under PL 240.25. In 2000, he performed at Blind Willie's in Atlanta , speaking fondly of his impending return to Greenwich Village. He reminisced over tunes like "You've Been a Good Old Wagon", a song teasing a worn-out lover, which he ruefully remarked had seemed humorous to him back in 1962. He continued to perform for four decades and gave his last concert just

5548-494: Was made available online, at the cost of $ 0.99 per track. Smithsonian Folkways pays royalties to all the artists (and if the artists cannot be found, the money is put in escrow ). The purpose of the brand name Smithsonian Global Sound has been altered to provide the entire collection online for streaming for subscribing institutions, such as universities, via the Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries service,

5624-400: Was opposition to the transfer, with some members of the Smithsonian citing the Folkways collection's "uneven quality" and "balance of repertory". Despite these criticisms, Rinzler persevered, and negotiations with Asch continued. Asch died in 1986 before the deal was completed, but his family finished the passing of the Folkways Records to the Smithsonian in 1987. The collection became known as

5700-443: Was rough and testy, disguising a warm, sensitive core." For an in depth, illustrated discography, see https://www.wirz.de/music/vanronk.htm Van Ronk was author of a posthumous memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street (2005) written with Elijah Wald . Anecdotes from the book were used as a source for the film Inside Llewyn Davis . Van Ronk and Richard Ellington collected and edited The Bosses' Songbook: [32] Songs to Stifle

5776-702: Was small. His house in Bat Yam is now the Sholem Asch Museum and part of the MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam complex of three museums. The bulk of his library, containing rare Yiddish books and manuscripts, as well as the manuscripts of some of his own works, is held at Yale University . Although many of his works are no longer read today, his best works have proven to be standards of Jewish and Yiddish literature. His sons were Moszek Asz/ Moses "Moe" Asch (2 December 1905, Warsaw – 19 October 1986, United States),

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