Misplaced Pages

#300699

28-400: Jerry Schoenbaum of Verve and Moe Asch of Folkways created Verve Folkways in 1964 to take advantage of the popularity of folk music. To broaden the label's appeal, the named was changed from Verve Folkways to Verve Forecast in 1967. Schoenbaum was president of the label. Schoenbaum left in 1969 and Verve Forecast was closed by its parent company, MGM , in 1970. After PolyGram bought MGM,

56-571: A manuscript page from Roots . However, Alex Haley maintained throughout the trial that he had not even heard of The African until the year after Roots was published, and speculated that someone else had given him the photocopied passages. After the trial, Joseph Bruchac , an instructor in black and African history at Skidmore College , stated that he had recommended Courlander's novel to Haley when he visited Skidmore in 1970. Bruchac remembered driving home three miles to fetch his own copy of The African and give it to Haley, who promised to read it "on

84-547: A new record company, Folkways Records, in her name. Harold Courlander worked for Asch as editor at the time and is credited with coming up with the name "Folkways" for the label. Although in theory a "consultant" to Folkways in its early years, Asch ran the company from its formation until his death. He recorded and published LP records by such famous folk and blues singers as Woody Guthrie , Lead Belly , Pete Seeger , Cisco Houston , and Ella Jenkins . Asch published American, African, Asian and European folk music, such as

112-823: A news writer and news analyst for the Voice of America in New York City. He was an information specialist and speech writer for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations from 1956 to 1957. He was a writer and editor for The United Nations Review from 1957 to 1960. From 1960 until 1974, Courlander was African specialist, Caribbean specialist, feature writer, and senior news analyst for the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. Courlander wrote seven novels, his most famous being The African , published in 1967. The novel

140-622: A significant recording relationship with James P. Johnson , described as the Father of Stride Piano. Johnson made a significant series of recordings for several labels controlled by Asch, including Asch, Stinson, Disc, and Folkways. On the Stinson album, New York Jazz, Johnson recorded five numbers which he stated could be heard in New York in the 1910s, in addition to the first recorded piano solo of Scott Joplin 's, Euphonic Sounds. This established

168-414: A very different and less successful novel, and indeed it is doubtful that Mr. Haley could have written Roots without The African . ... Mr. Haley copied language, thoughts, attitudes, incidents, situations, plot and character. The lawsuit did not allege that The African 's plot was copied in its entirety, as the two novels differ in many plot points. Courlander's novel depicts a successful revolt on

196-465: Is significant and extensive. ... Roots ... plainly uses The African as a model: as something to be copied at some times, and at other times to be modified, but always it seems, to be consulted. ... Roots takes from The African phrases, situations, ideas, aspects of style and plot. Roots finds in The African essential elements for its depiction of such things as a slave's thoughts of escape,

224-554: The American cultural mainstream. Some of America's greatest folk songs were originally recorded for Asch, including " This Land Is Your Land " by Woody Guthrie and " Goodnight Irene " by Lead Belly . Asch sold many commercial recordings to Verve Records ; after his death, Asch's archive of ethnic recordings was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution , and released as Smithsonian Folkways Records . Moses Asch

252-666: The Smithsonian Institution , and Asch stipulated in his will that no titles were to be deleted, and that unreleased master tapes in the Folkways archive should be explored. The Smithsonian acquisition of the Folkways archive was, in part, funded by the release of the album A Vision Shared: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly , which featured contributions by Pete Seeger , Bob Dylan , Bruce Springsteen , U2 and other artists. Folk Singer Dave Van Ronk said: "Moe Asch could be an exasperating man, and he would never pay you ten cents if he could get away with five, but he really loved

280-688: The 1930s on a farm in Romeo, Michigan . There, he built a one-room log cabin in the woods where he spent much of his time writing. With the prize money from the Hopwood Awards, Courlander took his first field trip to Haiti , inspired by the writings of William Buehler Seabrook . In 1939, he published his first book about Haitian life entitled Haiti Singing . Over the next 30 years, he traveled to Haiti more than 20 times. His research focused on religious practices, African retentions, oral traditions, folklore , music , and dance . His book, The Drum and

308-480: The 1940s, including a rare pre- Holocaust liturgy from Moshe Koussevitzky . In 1952, filmmaker and ethnomusicologist Harry Smith compiled for Asch the Anthology of American Folk Music , a collection of indigenous southern and mid-western US folk songs, which was the first record to conscientiously not differentiate between black and white folk singers upon Smith's request. Smith said of Asch in an interview on

SECTION 10

#1732790425301

336-557: The Hoe: Life and Lore of the Haitian People , published in 1960, became a classic text for the study of Haitian culture. Courlander also took numerous field trips to the southern United States , recording folk music in the 1940s and 1950s. From 1947 to 1960, he served as a general editor of Ethnic Folkways Library (he actually devised the label name) and recorded more than 30 albums of music from different cultures ( e.g. ,

364-850: The Hopi Indians , was issued in 1970 and was quickly recognized as an indispensable work in the study of oral literature. From 1942 to 1943, during World War II , Harold Courlander served as a historian for the Air Transport Command for the Douglas Aircraft Project 19 in Gura, Eritrea . Courlander then worked as a writer and editor for the Office of War Information in New York City and Bombay , India , from 1943 to 1946. From 1946 until 1956, he worked as

392-717: The LPs Religious Folk Music of India , Sounds and Dances of Haiti , Folk Music of Ethiopia , The Old Folksongs of Vermont , and The Folk Music of France . Asch also issued Negro slave spirituals, such as the Negro Folk Music of Alabama , originally collected in 1952 by Harold Courlander who was an associate of Asch, and Negro Folk Songs redone by the Folk Masters, an African American band in 1952, as well Mormon Folk Songs and Yiddish, Ladino, and Hebrew-Aramaic, Cantorial synagogue music from

420-1011: The Verve Forecast catalog was incorporated into Polydor . The label was revived in the 1990s for smooth jazz releases by Chris Botti , Jeff Lorber , and Will Downing . When PolyGram merged with MCA Records to become Universal , the imprint was deactivated and its roster was transferred to GRP . In 2004, Verve Forecast was revived again to replace Blue Thumb Records to handle acts outside of jazz. Verve Forecast signed pop, rock, folk, and blues musicians including The Blues Project , Caravan , James Cotton , Friend & Lover , Tim Hardin , Richie Havens , The Hombres , John Lee Hooker , Lightnin' Hopkins , Janis Ian , Jim and Jean , Lead Belly , Bob Lind , The New Lost City Ramblers , Laura Nyro , Odetta , Street , and Dave Van Ronk . After 2004, Blues Traveler , Jamie Cullum , Dion , Jesse Harris , Katharine McPhee , Mandy Moore , Susan Tedeschi , Teddy Thompson , and Lizz Wright are on

448-679: The WBAI radio's "The Sing Out! Radio Show", and repeated the story in an interview with John Cohen in Sing Out! magazine, that he had shipped the most precious records in his collection from San Francisco to Asch in New York. Asch initially refused to pay the COD charges for the package. Only after days of cajoling, did Asch pay the COD charges. As it turned out, the Anthology became "the most important collection of its type", according to Asch. Asch had

476-659: The cultures of Indonesia , Ethiopia , West Africa , Haiti, and Cuba ). In 1950, he also did field recordings in Alabama later transcribed by John Benson Brooks . In the 1960s, Courlander began a series of field trips to the American Southwest to study the oral literature and culture of the Hopi Indians . His collection of folk tales, People of the Short Blue Corn: Tales and Legends of

504-461: The firm where Asch worked to build a transmitter for its Yiddish-language radio station, WEVD . Asch thereafter explored the market for recorded Yiddish music, both sacred and secular. In 1940, Asch established Asch Recordings, and concentrated on publishing and selling phonograph records. Asch overextended his operations and went bankrupt in 1948. Asch was able to resurrect his recording career in 1948 by having his secretary, Marian Distler, initiate

532-417: The form of specific ideas and passages. For example, strikingly similar language is used to describe an infestation of lice on the slave ship: In his Expert Witness Report submitted to federal court, Professor of English Michael Wood of Columbia University stated: The evidence of copying from The African in both the novel and the television dramatization of Roots is clear and irrefutable. The copying

560-407: The label. Moe Asch Moses Asch (December 2, 1905 – October 19, 1986) was an American recording engineer and record executive. He founded Asch Records, which then changed its name to Folkways Records when the label transitioned from 78 RPM recordings to LP records . Asch ran the Folkways label from 1948 until his death in 1986. Folkways was very influential in bringing folk music into

588-410: The link between the stride piano of Johnson, and the ragtime of Joplin, from which stride is descended. One principle behind Asch's direction of the Folkways label was that he never deleted a single title from the Folkways catalogue. Asch said, "Just because the letter J is less popular than the letter S, you don't take it out of the dictionary." After his death, the Folkways recordings were acquired by

SECTION 20

#1732790425301

616-492: The music." Neil Alan Marks wrote in The New York Times in 1980: "Folkways Records was for folklorists and musicians the talmudic source for much primary material. Its founder, Moses Asch, may have more to do with the preservation of folk music than any single person in this country." Anthropologist Michael Asch is his son. Harold Courlander Harold Courlander (September 18, 1908 – March 15, 1996)

644-476: The psychology of an old slave, the habits of mind of the hero, and the whole sense of life on an infamous slave ship. Such things are the life of a novel; and when they appear in Roots , they are the life of someone else's novel. During a five-week trial in federal district court, presiding U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Ward stated, "Copying there is, period." Passages from The African were found stapled to

672-580: The slave ship, a shipwreck in the French colony of Saint-Domingue , a fugitive life as escaped slaves, recapture by French troops, and then transport to New Orleans in 1802. Haley's novel begins before the American Revolution, depicts disease striking down the slaves before they could revolt, and shows the ship arriving successfully in the British colony of Maryland. The copying in Roots was in

700-409: Was an American novelist , folklorist , and anthropologist and an expert in the study of Haitian life. The author of 35 books and plays and numerous scholarly articles, Courlander specialized in the study of African , Caribbean , Afro-American , and Native American cultures. He took a special interest in oral literature , cults, and Afro-American cultural connections with Africa. Courlander

728-636: Was born in Indianapolis , Indiana, the son of the painter David Courlander of Detroit, Michigan . Courlander received a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan in 1931. At the University of Michigan, he received three Avery Hopwood Awards (one in drama and two in literary criticism). He attended graduate school at the University of Michigan and Columbia University . He spent time in

756-710: Was born in Warsaw , Poland, the son of Yiddish language novelist and dramatist Sholem Asch , and the younger brother of novelist Nathan Asch . In 1912, the Asch family left Poland, on account of antisemitism , and settled in a suburb of Paris. In 1915, as war engulfed France, the family emigrated to New York. After the war, Asch studied electronics at a technical Hochschule in Koblenz , Germany. He returned to New York to commence work as an audio engineer. In 1938, his father's employer, The Jewish Daily Forward , commissioned

784-672: Was the story of a slave's capture in Africa, his experiences aboard a slave ship, and his struggle to retain his native culture in a hostile new world. In 1978, Courlander filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York , charging that Alex Haley , the author of Roots , had copied 81 passages from his novel. Courlander's pre-trial memorandum in the copyright infringement lawsuit claimed: Defendant Haley had access to and substantially copied from The African . Without The African , Roots would have been

#300699