KEN GOLDSTEIN'S STORY

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Kenneth S Goldstein started his career in the business sector. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration, theoretical mathematics, and statistics from the City College of New York. After army service during the 1940s, he worked as a market researcher and analyst, also taking up positions as the folk music director for Stinson, Folkways and Riverside Records, and folk and blues director for Prestige Records.

Goldstein first turned to the serious study of folk song during the 1950s. His early fieldwork include collecting trips that focused on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. During the late 1950s he enrolled in a new postgraduate degree programme at the University of Pennsylvania. With the assistance of a Fulbright Scholarship that supported his research with Edinburgh University’s School of Scottish Studies, Goldstein earned the first PhD in Folklore and Folklife from University of Pennsylvania in 1963.

Just over a decade later, he joined the faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He was the head of the Department of Folklore from 1976 to 1978 and a research associate until his death on 11 November 1995. Aidan O’Hara and many other students and colleagues worked with Goldstein during this time to document the traditions of Newfoundland.

His wiki entry tells us this about his recording work.

[He was] an American folklorist, educator and record producer and a "prime mover"[3] in the American Folk Music Revival.
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.[5] He acted as folk music director for Stinson Records, Folkways Records and Riverside Records, and folk and blues director for Prestige Records.[6] He estimated that by the mid-1950s he was recording 60 albums per year.[7]

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.[5] Some of these have been hailed as "milestones" in the histories of their respective genres.[5]

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.[8][9]

The Clancy Brothers' albums introduced the guitar and the "ballad-group" sound into mainstream Irish folk music.[10][11]

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.[12]

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