Kenneth S. Goldstein

Kenneth S. Goldstein (March 17, 1927 – November 11, 1995) was an American folklorist, educator and record producer and a "prime mover" in the American Folk Music Revival.

Early life and education Goldstein was born in Brooklyn to Tillie Horowitz from Riga, Latvia and Irving Martin Goldstein from London, England.

After military service in the US Army, Goldstein earned bachelor's and master's degrees in business administration from the City College of New York in 1949 and 1951 respectively.

Recordings Whilst working as a statistician for Fairchild Productions, Goldstein developed his interest in folklife and particularly folksong of North American and the British Isles, becoming an important figure in the nascent folk music recording scene. He estimated that by the mid-1950s he was recording 60 albums per year.

In total, he produced and recorded over 500 recordings in the 1950s and 1960s, including recordings by Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd, Jean Ritchie, Reverend Gary Davis, Sara Cleveland, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.

The albums he recorded for Prestige Records (and its subsidiary Bluesville Records) with blues pioneers like Reverend Gary Davis, Lightnin' Hopkins, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Lead Belly, had a profound effect on American blues and rock and roll.

The Clancy Brothers' albums introduced the guitar and the "ballad-group" sound into mainstream Irish folk music.

Goldstein's recordings of MacColl and Lloyd were among the first English and Scottish albums ever recorded in the US and they opened up a vast new market that transformed the folk scene.

Goldstein's liner notes for many of these albums established him as an expert in folksong.

Goldstein completed his Ph.D. - the first awarded in folklore by the University of Pennsylvania - with a thesis titled A Guide for Fieldworkers in Folklore.

In 1962 Goldstein co-founded of the Philadelphia Folk Festival. The American Folklore Society has created a scholarship fund in his honour, The Kenneth Goldstein Award for Lifetime Academic Leadership.

Goldstein’s collection of books and records is now housed at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture in Oxford, Mississippi and his collection of American broadsides and country-western folios is housed at the Middle Tennessee State University Center for Popular Music in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

A festschrift honouring Goldstein's contributions to the field of folklore, titled Fields of Folklore: Essays in Honor of Kenneth Goldstein and edited by Roger Abrahams, was published by Trickster Press in 1995.

Family He married Rochelle Judith Korn in 1949. She was a partner in his work and together they had five children, including Diane Goldstein, a folk music academic and Jah Levi, a music producer.