Vanguard Records
Encyclopedia
Vanguard Records is a record label
set up in 1950
by brothers Maynard
and Seymour Solomon in New York
. It started as a classical
label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary label.
, the company began the 'Jazz Showcase' series that concentrated on the mainstream jazz idiom, producing about two dozen recordings before it was wound down about 1958. Recordings made at the Spirituals to Swing
concerts in 1938 and 1939 were finally released by Vanguard in 1959. The company only intermittently pursued recording jazz thereafter.
Vanguard diversified in the mid-1950s by challenging the blacklist and signing blacklisted performers Paul Robeson
and the Weavers
. The company continued to issue folk music
with newly signed artists Joan Baez
, Hedy West
, the Rooftop Singers
, Buffy Sainte-Marie
, Country Joe and the Fish
, Ian and Sylvia
, and Mimi
and Richard Fariña
.
In the summer of 1965 Maynard Solomon hired Samuel Charters
to edit the tapes of the 1964 Newport Folk Festival
. Following that project, the company sent Charters to Chicago
to capture the broad range of 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 by Junior Wells
with Buddy Guy
, Muddy Waters
's bandmates Otis Spann
and James Cotton
, Otis Rush
, Homesick James
, Johnny Shines
, Big Walter Horton
, and Charlie Musselwhite
.
Vanguard released a number of important classical recordings, both domestically-produced and imported. Many of the latter came 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 performances by the Utah Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Maurice Abravanel
, as well as the earlier P.D.Q. Bach recordings, from 1965 to 1983. Vanguard was the first American label to release the complete 1944 high fidelity recordings of composer Richard Strauss
conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
in most of his tone poems; the recordings were made on the Magnetophon
tape recording equipment in the Vienna
Opera House.
After entering the rock market by signing Country Joe and the Fish
, Vanguard started a 6500 series for releases by rock acts, but had little success in that field. With acts such as Joan Baez and Ian & Sylvia leaving for other labels and disappointing sales for the "Everyman" budget classical series, by the early 1970's Vanguard's stature in the music industry was greatly diminished. The label stayed minimally active with specialty releases such as those by Indian classical musician and sarod
virtouso Vasant Rai
. An unexpected novelty hit on Vanguard, "Shaving Cream
" by Benny Bell
, led the company to release albums of humorous music inspired by Dr. Demento
. In the late 1970s Tom Paxton
issued two albums, New Songs from the Briarpatch and Heroes, on the label. A few disco albums by acts such as Players Association
were released on Vanguard without much chart impact.
After this period of near-dormancy, Vanguard was sold to the Welk Music Group
in 1985. The Welk Group sold the classical music catalog back to Seymour Solomon. 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
), along with established musicians (such as Edwin McCain
, Hootie & the Blowfish
, Blues Traveler
, Shawn Mullins
, Chely Wright
, Levon Helm
and Merle Haggard
, among others). In 2008, Welk Music Group began a distribution deal with EMI
to handle its labels including Vanguard. This was followed by the creation of a joint venture label with EMI, called Vanguard/Capitol. The first release on the new label was Kimberly Caldwell
's debut album, Without Regret
.
Vanguard Classics was sold after Seymour Solomon's death to Artemis Records, which reactivated the company with new releases by Leon Fleisher and Gil Shaham. When Artemis folded in 2004, the Vanguard Classics catalogue was sold to Sheridan Square Entertainment, which is licensing the Vanguard Classics material with no apparent plans to relaunch or reactivate the label.
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
set up in 1950
1950 in music
-Events:*January 3 – Sam Phillips launches Sun Records at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee.*August – Herbert Howells' Hymnus Paradisi is premiered at the Three Choirs Festival.*Malcolm Sargent becomes chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra....
by brothers Maynard
Maynard Solomon
Maynard Solomon has carried out a multiple career: he was a co-founder of Vanguard Records as well as a music producer, and later became a writer on music.-Career in the recording industry:...
and Seymour Solomon in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. It started as a classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary label.
History
In 1953, under the direction of John HammondJohn H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
, the company began the 'Jazz Showcase' series that concentrated on the mainstream jazz idiom, producing about two dozen recordings before it was wound down about 1958. Recordings made at the Spirituals to Swing
From Spirituals to Swing
From Spirituals to Swing was the title of two concerts presented by John Hammond in Carnegie Hall on 23 December 1938 and 24 December 1939. The concerts included performances by Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson, Helen Humes, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Mitchell's...
concerts in 1938 and 1939 were finally released by Vanguard in 1959. The company only intermittently pursued recording jazz thereafter.
Vanguard diversified in the mid-1950s by challenging the blacklist and signing blacklisted performers Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
and the Weavers
The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
. The company continued to issue folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
with newly signed artists Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, Hedy West
Hedy West
Hedy West was an American folksinger and songwriter.West was of the same generation as Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and others of the American folk music revival. Her most famous song "500 Miles" is one of America's best loved and best known folk songs...
, the Rooftop Singers
The Rooftop Singers
The Rooftop Singers were an American progressive folk-singing trio in the early 1960s, best known for the hit "Walk Right In". The group was composed of Erik Darling and Bill Svanoe with former jazz singer Lynne Taylor ....
, Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC is a Canadian Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire includes...
, Country Joe and the Fish
Country Joe and the Fish
Country Joe and the Fish was a rock band most widely known for musical protests against the Vietnam War, from 1966 to 1971, and also regarded as a seminal influence to psychedelic rock.-History:...
, Ian and Sylvia
Ian and Sylvia
Ian & Sylvia were a Canadian folk and country music duo which consisted of Ian and Sylvia Tyson, née Fricker. They began performing together in 1959, married in 1964, and divorced and stopped performing together in 1975.-Early lives:...
, and Mimi
Mimi Fariña
Mimi Baez Fariña was a singer-songwriter and activist, the youngest of three daughters to a Scottish mother and Mexican-American physicist Albert Baez .- Early years:Fariña's father, a physicist affiliated with Stanford University and MIT, moved his family...
and Richard Fariña
Richard Fariña
Richard George Fariña was an American writer and folksinger.-Early years and education:Richard Fariña was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Cuban and Irish descent. He grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn and attended Brooklyn Technical High School...
.
In the summer of 1965 Maynard Solomon hired Samuel Charters
Samuel Charters
Samuel Charters, born Samuel Barclay Charters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 1, 1929 , is an American music historian, writer, record producer, musician, and poet...
to edit the tapes of the 1964 Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival
The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...
. Following that project, the company sent Charters to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
to capture the broad range of blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
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 by Junior Wells
Junior Wells
Junior Wells , born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was an American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist...
with Buddy Guy
Buddy Guy
George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...
, Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
's bandmates Otis Spann
Otis Spann
Otis Spann was an American blues musician, who many consider the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist.-Career:Born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, Spann became known for his distinct piano style....
and James Cotton
James Cotton
James Cotton is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who has performed and recorded with many of the great blues artists of his time as well as with his own band.-Career:...
, Otis Rush
Otis Rush
Otis Rush is a blues musician, singer and guitarist. His distinctive guitar style features a slow burning sound and long bent notes...
, Homesick James
Homesick James
Homesick James was an American blues musician. He most notably played slide guitar, and recorded covers of "Stones In My Passway" and "Homesick"...
, Johnny Shines
Johnny Shines
Johnny Shines was an American blues singer and guitarist. According to the music journalist Tony Russell, "Shines was that rare being, a blues artist who overcame age and rustiness to make music that stood up beside the work of his youth...
, Big Walter Horton
Big Walter Horton
Walter Horton, better known as Big Walter Horton or Walter "Shakey" Horton, was an American blues harmonica player. A quiet, unassuming and essentially shy man, Horton is remembered as one of the premier harmonica players in the history of blues...
, and Charlie Musselwhite
Charlie Musselwhite
Charlie Musselwhite is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the non-black bluesmen who came to prominence in the early 1960s, along with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield. Though he has often been identified as a "white bluesman", he claims Native American heritage...
.
Vanguard released a number of important classical recordings, both domestically-produced and imported. Many of the latter came from the United Kingdom's Pye Records
Pye Records
Pye Records was a British record label. In its first incarnation, perhaps Pye's best known artists were Lonnie Donegan , Petula Clark , The Searchers , The Kinks , Sandie Shaw and Brotherhood of Man...
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
Symphony No. 4 (Tchaikovsky)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36, was written between 1877 and 1878. The symphony's first performance was at a Russian Musical Society concert in Saint Petersburg on February 10 /February 22 1878, with Nikolai Rubinstein as conductor.- Form :The symphony is in four...
with the American Symphony Orchestra
American Symphony Orchestra
The American Symphony Orchestra is a New York-based American orchestra founded in 1962 by Leopold Stokowski, then aged 80. Following Maestro Stokowski's departure, Kazuyoshi Akiyama was appointed Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra from 1973-1978. Music Directors during the early...
conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
. The label also released many performances by the Utah Symphony Orchestra
Utah Symphony Orchestra
-History:The first attempt to create a symphony group in the Utah area occurred in 1892, before Utah was a state. The Salt Lake Symphony was created and presented just one concert before disbanding. In 1902 the Salt Lake Symphony Orchestra was formed, and it remained in existence until 1911...
conducted by Maurice Abravanel
Maurice Abravanel
Maurice Abravanel was aSwiss-American Jewish conductor of classical music. He is remembered as the conductor of the Utah Symphony Orchestra for over 30 years.-Life:...
, as well as the earlier P.D.Q. Bach recordings, from 1965 to 1983. Vanguard was the first American label to release the complete 1944 high fidelity recordings of composer Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
The Vienna Philharmonic is an orchestra in Austria, regularly considered one of the finest in the world....
in most of his tone poems; the recordings were made on the Magnetophon
Magnetophon
Magnetophon was the brand or model name of the pioneering reel-to-reel tape recorder developed by engineers of the German electronics company AEG in the 1930s, based on the magnetic tape invention by Fritz Pfleumer...
tape recording equipment in the Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
Opera House.
After entering the rock market by signing Country Joe and the Fish
Country Joe and the Fish
Country Joe and the Fish was a rock band most widely known for musical protests against the Vietnam War, from 1966 to 1971, and also regarded as a seminal influence to psychedelic rock.-History:...
, Vanguard started a 6500 series for releases by rock acts, but had little success in that field. With acts such as Joan Baez and Ian & Sylvia leaving for other labels and disappointing sales for the "Everyman" budget classical series, by the early 1970's Vanguard's stature in the music industry was greatly diminished. The label stayed minimally active with specialty releases such as those by Indian classical musician and sarod
Sarod
The sarod is a stringed musical instrument, used mainly in Indian classical music. Along with the sitar, it is the most popular and prominent instrument in the classical music of Hindustan...
virtouso Vasant Rai
Vasant Rai
Vasant Rai was one of world's most acclaimed performers of Indian music and virtuoso of the Indo/Persian/Afghan instrument Sarod.-Personal life and education:Rai was born in Unjha, Kutch, Gujarat and studied music in India...
. An unexpected novelty hit on Vanguard, "Shaving Cream
Shaving Cream (song)
"Shaving Cream" is a song written by Benny Bell in 1946, and originally sung by Paul Wynn. It is a novelty song which uses innuendo with a rhyme scheme that implies that the last word in each verse is "shit", while the refrain begins with the words "Shaving Cream," with exaggerated emphasis on the...
" by Benny Bell
Benny Bell
Benny Bell was an American singer-songwriter who reached popularity in the 1940s, with a comeback in the 1970s. He is particularly remembered for his risqué but cheerfully optimistic songs.-Career:Benny Bell was born to an immigrant Jewish family in New York City...
, led the company to release albums of humorous music inspired by Dr. Demento
Dr. Demento
Barret Eugene Hansen , better known as Dr. Demento, is a radio broadcaster and record collector specializing in novelty songs, comedy, and strange or unusual recordings dating from the early days of phonograph records to the present....
. In the late 1970s Tom Paxton
Tom Paxton
Thomas Richard Paxton is an American folk singer and singer-songwriter who has been writing, performing and recording music for over forty years...
issued two albums, New Songs from the Briarpatch and Heroes, on the label. A few disco albums by acts such as Players Association
Players association
Players Association were a New York based, Vanguard Records studio group, put together by drummer / arranger Chris Hills and Danny Weiss in 1977....
were released on Vanguard without much chart impact.
After this period of near-dormancy, Vanguard was sold to the Welk Music Group
Welk Music Group
Welk Music Group is a record company comprising three labels, Ranwood Records, Vanguard Records and Sugar Hill Records. It was founded by Lawrence Welk and is still owned by the Welk Family. EMI distributes the Welk labels.-External links:*...
in 1985. The Welk Group sold the classical music catalog back to Seymour Solomon. Welk Music Group revitalized the label, reissuing much of its extensive folk and popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
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
Mindy Smith
Mindy Smith is an American singer-songwriter. Her music can be classified as all of the following: folk, country, Americana, bluegrass, pop, rock, and even alternative. Her voice and music have been compared to that of Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin, Norah Jones, and Alison Krauss.-Biography:Smith...
), along with established musicians (such as Edwin McCain
Edwin McCain
Edwin McCain is an American singer-songwriter and musician.-Career:While his albums are released under his name, he does have a permanent band, referred to as the Edwin McCain Band...
, Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie & the Blowfish is an American rock band that enjoyed popularity in the second half of the 1990s. They were originally formed in 1986 at the University of South Carolina by Darius Rucker, Dean Felber, Jim Sonefeld, and Mark Bryan. The band has recorded five studio albums to date, and has...
, Blues Traveler
Blues Traveler
Blues Traveler is a rock band, formed in Princeton, New Jersey in 1987. The band has been influenced by a variety of genres, including blues-rock, psychedelic rock, folk rock, soul, and Southern rock...
, Shawn Mullins
Shawn Mullins
Shawn Mullins is an American singer-songwriter who specializes in folk rock, instrumental rock, adult alternative, and Americana music. He is best known for the 1998 single, "Lullaby", which hit number one on the Adult Top 40 and was nominated for a Grammy Award.-Career:Mullins was born in...
, Chely Wright
Chely Wright
Richell Rene "Chely" Wright is an American country music artist and, starting in 2010, gay rights activist. On the strength of her debut album in 1994, the Academy of Country Music named her Top New Female Vocalist in 1995. Wright's first Top 40 country hit came in 1997 with "Shut Up and Drive"...
, Levon Helm
Levon Helm
Mark Lavon "Levon" Helm , is an American rock multi-instrumentalist and actor who achieved fame as the drummer and frequent lead and backing vocalist for The Band....
and Merle Haggard
Merle Haggard
Merle Ronald Haggard is an American country music singer, guitarist, fiddler, instrumentalist, and songwriter. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster guitars, vocal harmonies,...
, among others). In 2008, Welk Music Group began a distribution deal with EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
to handle its labels including Vanguard. This was followed by the creation of a joint venture label with EMI, called Vanguard/Capitol. The first release on the new label was Kimberly Caldwell
Kimberly Caldwell
Kimberly Ann Caldwell is an American singer, actress, and television hostess, from Katy, Texas who was the seventh place finalist on the second season of American Idol. She used to work as an entertainment correspondent and hosted various shows on the TV Guide Network...
's debut album, Without Regret
Without Regret
Without Regret is the debut album from American Idol season two seventh place finalist, Kimberly Caldwell. The album was supposed to be released on April 6, 2010 by Vanguard Records and Capitol Records, but according to Caldwell's website and YouTube channel, the album was pushed back to a July...
.
Vanguard Classics was sold after Seymour Solomon's death to Artemis Records, which reactivated the company with new releases by Leon Fleisher and Gil Shaham. When Artemis folded in 2004, the Vanguard Classics catalogue was sold to Sheridan Square Entertainment, which is licensing the Vanguard Classics material with no apparent plans to relaunch or reactivate the label.