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Vanguard Records
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Vanguard Records | |
|---|---|
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| Parent company | Welk Music Group |
| Founded | 1950 |
| Founder(s) | Maynard Solomon, Seymour Solomon |
| Distributing label | Vanguard Records (In the US) |
| Genre(s) | Folk music |
| Country of origin | US |
| Official Website | http://www.vanguardrecords.com |
| Vanguard Classics Records | |
|---|---|
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| Parent company | Artemis Records |
| Founded | 1990 |
| Founder(s) | Seymour Solomon |
| Distributing label | Artemis Records (In the US) |
| Genre(s) | Classical music |
| Country of origin | US |
| Official Website | http://www.vanguardclassics.com |
Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical and jazz label, but shifted direction in the mid-1950s by challenging the blacklist and signing blacklisted performers Paul Robeson and The Weavers. Their new emphasis on folk music was enhanced by signing Joan Baez, Hedy West, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Country Joe and the Fish, Ian and Sylvia, Mimi and Richard Fariña.
In the summer of 1965 Samuel Charters was hired by Maynard Solomon to edit the tapes of the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. Following that project, the company sent Charter to Chicago to capture the broadening appeal of the blues musicians there. Those sessions resulted in the classic 1966 three album series titled Chicago/The Blues/Today!, which introduced a new generation to the blues. The albums included sets of Junior Wells with Buddy Guy, Muddy Water's bandmates Otis Spann and Jimmy Cotton, Otis Rush, Homesick James, Johnny Shines, Big Walter Horton, and Charlie Musselwhite.
Vanguard released a number of imported classical recordings, many of them taken from the United Kingdom's Pye Records label, featuring performances by the Halle Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli. The recordings were so exceptional in their stereo sound and overall quality that many classical radio stations programmed them. Vanguard even released some quadraphonic classical recordings in the early 1970s, including a performance of Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony with the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. The label also released many of the P.D.Q. Bach recordings, from 1965 to 1983.
By the early 1970s, Vanguard released albums by Michigan-based rock groups such as Dick Wagner and The Frost and was inspired by an off the wall novelty hit they released, Shaving Cream by Benny Bell, to release albums of humorous music inspired by Dr. Demento.
The label stayed dormant for most of the mid- to late-seventies, it re-emerged briefly with some disco releases in the eighties, and was finally sold to the Welk Music Group in 1985. The Welk Group sold the classical music catalog back to Seymour Solomon, so there are now two active record labels bearing the Vanguard name. Welk Music Group revitalized the label, reissuing much of its extensive folk and popular music back catalogue (a good deal of which had been out of print for several years) on CD, as well as signing a number of new artists (such as Mindy Smith). Vanguard Classics Records is today owned by Artemis Records and also releases new material as well as its back catalog of classical music.