Moses Asch

Who was Moses Asch?

Moses Asch was the founder of Asch Records and then changed the name to Folkways Records, when the music changed from 78 RPM recordings to LP recordings. Asch ran the label from 1948, when the LP was invented, until his death in 1986. Many of the early Asch Records recordings were made available through Folkways LP's. Folkways was instrumental in bringing folk music into the American cultural mainstream. Some of America's greatest folk songs were originally recorded for, and originally published by Asch, including "This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land" by Woody Guthrie among many others. Many of his commercial recordings he sold to Verve Records, and the culturally ethnic American records he freely donated to the Smithsonian Institution, as Smithsonian-Folkways Archival Records.