17 Facts About Moses Asch

Moses Asch was an American recording engineer and record executive.

Moses Asch founded Asch Records, which then changed its name to Folkways Records when the label transitioned from 78 RPM recordings to LP records.

Some of America's greatest folk songs were originally recorded for Moses Asch, including "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie and "Goodnight Irene" by Lead Belly.

Moses Asch sold many commercial recordings to Verve Records; after his death, Moses Asch's archive of ethnic recordings was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution, and released as Smithsonian Folkways Records.

Moses Asch 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 Moses Asch family left Poland, on account of antisemitism, and settled in a suburb of Paris.

Moses Asch returned to New York to commence work as an audio engineer.

In 1938, his father's employer, The Jewish Daily Forward, commissioned the firm where Moses Asch worked to build a transmitter for its Yiddish-language radio station, WEVD.

Moses Asch thereafter explored the market for recorded Yiddish music, both sacred and secular.

In 1940, Moses Asch established Moses Asch Recordings, and concentrated on publishing and selling phonograph records.

Moses Asch was able to resurrect his recording career in 1948 by having his secretary, Marian Distler, initiate a new record company, Folkways Records, in her name.

Moses Asch recorded and published LP records by such famous folk and blues singers as Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, Cisco Houston, and Ella Jenkins.

Moses Asch published American, African, Asian and European folk music, such as 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.

Moses Asch issued Negro slave spirituals, such as the Negro Folk Music of Alabama, originally collected in 1952 by Harold Courlander who was an associate of Moses 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 the 1940s, including a rare pre-Holocaust liturgy from Moshe Koussevitzky.

Moses Asch initially refused to pay the COD charges for the package.

Only after days of cajoling, did Moses Asch pay the COD charges.

Johnson made a significant series of recordings for several labels controlled by Moses Asch, including Moses Asch, Stinson, Disc, and Folkways.