'Folkways' founder gets full bio treatment by Goldsmith

It is a little-known fact that College deans are a prolific bunch. Williams College Dean Peter Murphy wrote Poetry as an Occupation and and Art and Carleton College's Dean of Students Mark Govoni co-authored an annotated bibliography on writing instruction texts. But they cannot approach Oberlin's Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith and his triumph, the book Making People's Music: Moe Asch and Folkways Records.

The book documents the life of one of the most influential producers of folk music. Goldsmith said, "I was drawn to biography because of its narrative possibilities. Around 1986 I had a germ of an idea- a history of American Jews, a history of the American left-wing and the way in which they came together through folk music. The life of Moe Asch was a great opportunity to pull together three abiding interests of mine."

Goldsmith was first drawn to the folk music scene at summer camp in the early 1960s. "The camp was run by cousins of mine in southern New Hampshire. It was based on left-wing principles in that era of internationalism, also very much associated with folk music."

As the 1960s went on, Goldsmith saw that folk music had been at the crux of many important social movements, including the peace movement, the labor movement and the Civil Rights movement. The Civil Rights movement was the most successful campaign to use folk music to send its message. Goldsmith said, "Folk music lost its grip on public tastes as the left was turning its attention from Civil Rights to the anti-war movement. Folk music didn't hold sway in the late 1960s."

Though Goldsmith was then on the academic path, he did not lose his interest in folk music. He started the long road to gaining a doctorate, eventually completing his thesis on African-Amerian religion. He said, "My career subsequently took an administrative turn and I realized my career was no longer dependent on [strictly academic] writing." Goldsmith was therefore free to pursue more interdisciplinary enterprises, including the writing of Making People's Music: Moe Asch and Folkways Records. Goldsmith said, "A lot came together at the time Moe Asch died [in 1986]. I heard an obituary of Asch on National Public Radio."

Goldsmith elaborated on how important Moe Asch's legacy was to his family. "If you were a left-wing family, there were lots of Folkways Records around." The Asch influence on Goldsmith was not merely music. Moe's father, Sholem, was a famous Yiddish writer with a great connection to the culture. Through Sholem's writing Goldsmith was able to trace developments in Jewish-American identity.

Luckily for the dean, a set of fortunate circumstances made the research process much less complicated than it might have been. Goldsmith said, "There was a negotiation in progress [at the time of Asch's death] to have the Smithsonian [Institute] buy the Folkways Records label, archives and recordings. Almost all the written documents I needed were available in a single office." The author also interviewed surviving family members, folk musicians, producers and ethnomusicologists.

The Folkways connection was not limited to Washington, D.C., however. The label also produced records made at Oberlin College in the 1970s. These albums were produced by Oberlin student Richard Carlin and "are collections of recordings Asch put out on Folkways [documenting] concertina music," according to Goldsmith.

Goldsmith, like any accomplished author, wanted Making People's Music: Moe Asch and Folkways Records to move the general public. The author said, "I deliberately wanted this book to reach beyond a purely scholarly audience. There's an audience of folk music enthusiasts who overlap substantially with leftist audiences...My audience ended up being largely aging left-wing folkies." To tap into that audience, Goldsmith's book was advertised in the Nation and other leftist journals. Goldsmith recalls with delight the "high point of the promotional aspect was being interviewed by Terry Gross for Fresh Air."

Though Making People's Music was a success by any definition - Goldsmith received two awards for his book - Goldsmith said that what was more important to him was the intimate understanding of folk music he gained. "One of the revelations in writing this book is how much older the connection between folk music and the politics of working actually is. The connection in the U.S. goes back to the International Workers of the World (IWW) and Joe Hill in the teens." The author mentions how our current conceptions of folk music can be traced back to the Popular Front of the 1930s, "a political, cultural and social movement that originated with the Communist party." He said, "The movement branched well beyond the Communist party in its influence. Eleanor Roosevelt was a great proponent of the Popular Front."

Though folk music has an extensive history, "folk music as a category is not a particularly useful category," Goldsmith said. "If there's anything that I found unfortunate in the development of folk music, it's the way folk music has become so very comparmentalized - it's caused us to lose sight of the tremendous cross-fertilization of rural African-American musicians and southern white Appalachian musicians of the 20s and 30s." Each group borrowed from the other, creating a rich tradition of folk music. "Once, one might have been able to speak of an American folk music tradition. Today," said Goldsmith, "you could only talk of American folk music traditions."

For Goldsmith, author and folk music enthusiast, it seems to almost make sense that he would abandon academia for the folk life. Goldsmith said, "Not even once have I considered it." Fortunately, the banjo-playing dean of students has found his home in Oberlin College.

Off the beaten path: Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith is not only an academic, but an accomplished writer. (photo by Pauline Shapiro)