All the ghosts, some old, some new

[sovay]

History, what do you mean that Folkways Records was founded by the son of Sholem Asch who, as one last trick after the scandals of Jewish lesbians and Christian novels, wrote a version of the Nativity recorded for his son's record label by Pete Seeger? What kind of concatenation is that to drop on an unsuspecting person? And is there a reason no artist is credited with the pen-and-ink illustrations depicting the story in 1963 even as the prose sticks to its historical setting, which are maddening me with their sketch-expressive familiarity, although perhaps only because my grandmother had that kind of loose, scribbly, ink-washed line? Ben Shahn at least had the decency to sign his album art. The Claibornes' "Listen, Mr. Bilbo" could have had the luck to lose its relevance since 1946. History, the other kind of convergence was more fun. Listen while I tell you that the foreigners you hate are the very same people made America great.

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

It's complicated, but the short timeline is part of summers 1974-76, regular hours 1977 for a while, part time later on, no longer working for them when they decided that it wasn't worth paying people to work part time in the 1990s. Rounder is the label, but also was a distribution company with many other labels, including Folkways (later Smithsonian Folkways). During those two decades, I worked filling orders in the warehouse, accounts payable (it is possible that I could still do double entry bookkeeping), did a couple of years as production coordinator for the actual label (no input into musical choice, but working on the phone with record pressing plants and such), doing exports (back in the warehouse, with added customs paperwork and shipping company coordination), then after Flo was born, doing new release updates, then finally royalty payments.
Learned a lot. Not all the experiences were positive, but many were. I still keep in touch with a few coworkers, after all these years.