13 Facts About Cynthia Gooding

Cynthia Gooding was an American folk singer and musicologist who recorded traditional songs from various countries for Elektra Records in the 1950s and 1960s.

Cynthia Gooding was born in Rochester, Minnesota, and grew up in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Cynthia Gooding married Turkish-born Hasan Ozbekhan in 1949; they divorced in the late 1950s.

Cynthia Gooding was one of the earliest artists I recorded.

On Friday, January 27,1956, Gooding rented Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall for $100, and presumably performed songs from her Elektra releases in the space.

Cynthia Gooding wrote in the original liner notes that she obtained the songs from various sources, including street musicians; one of the Mexican songs was "La Bamba," recorded several years before Ritchie Valens' hit version.

Cynthia Gooding released two more LPs that year, Cynthia Gooding Sings of Faithful Lovers.

Cynthia Gooding released Languages of Love on the Riverside label in 1958, and the misleadingly titled The Best of Cynthia Gooding on the Prestige International label the following year.

Cynthia Gooding made many recordings around Greenwich Village and elsewhere, as research and material for her shows, and in early 1962 conducted the first radio interview with Bob Dylan, before his first album was released.

Cynthia Gooding toured nationally, with her two daughters, and traveled to Spain where she collected recordings of flamenco music and befriended musicians including leading flamenco singer Juan Talega and guitarist Diego del Gastor.

Cynthia Gooding recorded an album of nursery rhymes with Don Drake, and in the late 1960s traveled around the US as part of a National Endowment for the Humanities program.

Cynthia Gooding continued to make occasional performances during the 1970s.

Cynthia Gooding died of cancer in Kingston, New Jersey, in 1988, at the age of 63.