Harold Leventhal
Encyclopedia
Harold Leventhal was an American music manager. He died in 2005 at the age of 86. His career began as a song plugger for Irving Berlin
. He managed The Weavers
, Woody Guthrie
, Peter, Paul and Mary
and Joan Baez
.
, to Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Ukraine
and Lithuania
, Leventhal was eight weeks old when his father died. His mother moved the family to the Lower East Side, where she worked as their tenement's janitor. They then moved to the Bronx, where in 1935, at James Monroe high school, Leventhal, already a member of the Young Communist League
, was arrested for organising an "Oxford Pledge" strike, aimed at persuading students to refuse to fight further wars.
He lost his first factory job for union
organising, but was hired as an office boy by the songwriter Irving Berlin. Soon he was working as Berlin's "plugger", taking his songs around the nightclubs to be bought by band leaders such as Harry James
, the Dorsey Brothers and Benny Goodman
. He then joined Goodman's Regent Music Company, before enlisting in the army when the U.S. joined the Second World War
. Assigned to India
with the Signal Corps, Leventhal sought out the Congress movement, meeting Nehru and Gandhi. He founded American Friends of India, and, at a 1954 party hosted by the Indian delegation to the United Nations
, Leventhal met Nathalie Buxbaum, a UN guide, who was to become his wife.
business, Leventhal continued to be active in left-wing causes. Through reading Woody Guthrie's column in the Daily Worker
, he became enamoured of folk music. His commitment to Seeger and the Weavers led to his representing more and more artists.
Two concerts in particular sealed Leventhal's fame. While working on the doomed 1948 presidential campaign of the progressive
Henry Wallace
, Leventhal met folk singer Pete Seeger
, and soon became the manager of Seeger's group, The Weavers
. Blacklisted as communists, the group had such difficulty finding a place to perform that they disbanded in 1952. But Leventhal persisted, and in 1955 he organised a Christmas Eve Weavers reunion concert at New York
's Carnegie Hall
, persuading the members to take part by convincing each one that the others had already agreed. The concert ignited the folk music boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which in turn led to Leventhal recognising the talent of a 19-year-old Bob Dylan
, and promoting his first concert, at the Town Hall in New York city in April, 1963.
Denied a passport until 1955 because of his Communist sympathies, Leventhal organised world tours for folk singers that the U.S. state department
forbade from taking part in official cultural exchanges.
In the era of McCarthyism
and the flowering of the American civil rights movement, folk music
became the voice of the country's conscience, and Harold Leventhal was the man responsible for making that voice heard. Leventhal was a committed leftist whose music business acumen turned him into folk music's most successful promoter. He was the model for Irving Steinbloom, the impresario immortalised in the 2003 movie comedy A Mighty Wind
.
In 1988, Leventhal won a Grammy award for Folkways: A Vision Shared
, a tribute to Woodie Guthrie and Leadbelly
.
' blues
to jazz
greats such as Duke Ellington
and Dexter Gordon
to folk traditionalists Cisco Houston
, Theodore Bikel
, Oscar Brand
and Mahalia Jackson
. His reputation for getting black and women artists fair deals with record companies led to his representing many of the leading female folk singers, including Judy Collins
, Miriam Makeba
, Buffy Sainte-Marie
and Joan Baez
. He represented Ireland
's Clancy Brothers, Britain's Ewan MacColl
, Donovan
and Pentangle
, and also had an eclectic international roster including Jacques Brel
, Nana Mouskouri
, Mercedes Sosa
and Ravi Shankar.
He had a knack for producing big shows that could focus the energy of an era. A birthday benefit concert
for Martin Luther King, Jr.
at Carnegie Hall in 1961 helped King appeal to the white general public. He produced fund raising tribute concerts for Phil Ochs
, Paul Robeson
, the Spanish civil war
's Abraham Lincoln Brigade
and, most memorably, for Woody Guthrie.
After Guthrie's death in 1967, Leventhal virtually adopted Woody's son Arlo
, who worked in his office before making his hit record Alice's Restaurant
. He helped produce the film based on that song, and later co-produced the Oscar
-winning Bound for Glory starring David Carradine
as Woody Guthrie. Among his other films was the Weavers documentary Wasn't that a Time! (1984) and the Emmy-winning We Shall Overcome
(1988). Leventhal also produced theatre, starting with his fellow blacklister Will Geer
performing Mark Twain
's 'America' off-Broadway
in 1952.
Reflecting his political and musical interests, he produced, among others, Joseph Heller
's We Bombed in New Haven, Jules Epstein's But Seriously, Rabindranath Tagore
's King of the Dark Chamber and Jules Feiffer
's The White House Murder Case.
, meaning "man" in the sense of "an upright, honourable, decent person, someone of noble character".
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
. He managed The Weavers
The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
, Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...
and Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
.
Personal life
Born in Ellenville, New YorkEllenville, New York
Ellenville is a village in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 4,135 at the 2010 census. The postal ZIP code is 12428. The telephone exchange is predominantly 647 and an overlaid 210 in the 845 area code.- Geography :...
, to Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, Leventhal was eight weeks old when his father died. His mother moved the family to the Lower East Side, where she worked as their tenement's janitor. They then moved to the Bronx, where in 1935, at James Monroe high school, Leventhal, already a member of the Young Communist League
Young Communist League
The Young Communist League was or is the name used by the youth wing of various Communist parties around the world. The name YCL of XXX was generally taken by all sections of the Communist Youth International.Examples of YCLs:...
, was arrested for organising an "Oxford Pledge" strike, aimed at persuading students to refuse to fight further wars.
He lost his first factory job for union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
organising, but was hired as an office boy by the songwriter Irving Berlin. Soon he was working as Berlin's "plugger", taking his songs around the nightclubs to be bought by band leaders such as Harry James
Harry James
Henry Haag “Harry” James was a trumpeter who led a jazz swing band during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s. He was especially known among musicians for his astonishing technical proficiency as well as his superior tone.-Biography:He was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of a bandleader of a...
, the Dorsey Brothers and Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
. He then joined Goodman's Regent Music Company, before enlisting in the army when the U.S. joined the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Assigned to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
with the Signal Corps, Leventhal sought out the Congress movement, meeting Nehru and Gandhi. He founded American Friends of India, and, at a 1954 party hosted by the Indian delegation to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, Leventhal met Nathalie Buxbaum, a UN guide, who was to become his wife.
Folk music
After the war, while working for his brother's foundation garmentFoundation garment
A foundation garment is an undergarment designed to temporarily alter the wearer's body shape, to achieve a more fashionable figure...
business, Leventhal continued to be active in left-wing causes. Through reading Woody Guthrie's column in the Daily Worker
Daily Worker
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...
, he became enamoured of folk music. His commitment to Seeger and the Weavers led to his representing more and more artists.
Two concerts in particular sealed Leventhal's fame. While working on the doomed 1948 presidential campaign of the progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
Henry Wallace
Henry Wallace
Henry or Harry Wallace may refer to:*Henry A. Wallace , U.S. Vice President 1941-1945, presidential candidate for the Progressive Party 1948**Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center...
, Leventhal met folk singer Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, and soon became the manager of Seeger's group, The Weavers
The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
. Blacklisted as communists, the group had such difficulty finding a place to perform that they disbanded in 1952. But Leventhal persisted, and in 1955 he organised a Christmas Eve Weavers reunion concert at New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
's Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, persuading the members to take part by convincing each one that the others had already agreed. The concert ignited the folk music boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which in turn led to Leventhal recognising the talent of a 19-year-old Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, and promoting his first concert, at the Town Hall in New York city in April, 1963.
Denied a passport until 1955 because of his Communist sympathies, Leventhal organised world tours for folk singers that the U.S. state department
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
forbade from taking part in official cultural exchanges.
In the era of McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
and the flowering of the American civil rights movement, folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
became the voice of the country's conscience, and Harold Leventhal was the man responsible for making that voice heard. Leventhal was a committed leftist whose music business acumen turned him into folk music's most successful promoter. He was the model for Irving Steinbloom, the impresario immortalised in the 2003 movie comedy A Mighty Wind
A Mighty Wind
A Mighty Wind is a 2003 mockumentary about a folk music reunion concert in which three folk bands must reunite for a television performance for the first time in decades. It was directed by Christopher Guest...
.
In 1988, Leventhal won a Grammy award for Folkways: A Vision Shared
Folkways: A Vision Shared
Folkways: A Vision Shared - A Tribute to Woody Guthrie & Leadbelly is a Grammy Award-winning 1988 album featuring songs by Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly interpreted by leading folk, rock, and country recording artists....
, a tribute to Woodie Guthrie and Leadbelly
Leadbelly
Huddie William Ledbetter was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced....
.
And beyond...
Leventhal's tastes were eclectic, from Lightnin' HopkinsLightnin' Hopkins
Sam John Hopkins better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas...
' blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
to jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
greats such as Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
and Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...
to folk traditionalists Cisco Houston
Cisco Houston
Gilbert Vandine 'Cisco' Houston was an American folk singer and songwriter who is closely associated with Woody Guthrie due to their extensive history of recording together....
, Theodore Bikel
Theodore Bikel
Theodore Meir Bikel is a character actor, folk singer and musician. He made his film debut in The African Queen and was nominated for an Academy award for his supporting role as Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones ....
, Oscar Brand
Oscar Brand
Oscar Brand is a folk singer, songwriter, and author. In his career, spanning over 60 years, he has composed at least 300 songs and released nearly 100 albums, among them Canadian and American patriotic songs...
and Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson – January 27, 1972) was an African-American gospel singer. Possessing a powerful contralto voice, she was referred to as "The Queen of Gospel"...
. His reputation for getting black and women artists fair deals with record companies led to his representing many of the leading female folk singers, including Judy Collins
Judy Collins
Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...
, Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba , nicknamed Mama Africa, was a Grammy Award winning South African singer and civil rights activist....
, Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC is a Canadian Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire includes...
and Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
. He represented Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
's Clancy Brothers, Britain's Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl was an English folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer. He was married to theatre director Joan Littlewood, and later to American folksinger Peggy Seeger. He collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre and with Seeger in folk music...
, Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
and Pentangle
Pentangle (band)
Pentangle are a British folk rock band with some folk jazz influences. The original band were active in the late 1960s and early 1970s and a later version has been active since the early 1980s...
, and also had an eclectic international roster including Jacques Brel
Jacques Brel
Jacques Brel was a Belgian singer-songwriter who composed and performed literate, thoughtful, and theatrical songs that generated a large, devoted following in France initially, and later throughout the world. He was widely considered a master of the modern chanson...
, Nana Mouskouri
Nana Mouskouri
Nana Mouskouri , born Ioánna Moúschouri on October 13, 1934, in Chania, Crete, Greece, is a Greek singer who has sold about 300 million records worldwide in a career spanning over five decades, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. She was known as Nána to her friends and...
, Mercedes Sosa
Mercedes Sosa
Haydée Mercedes Sosa, known as La Negra, was an Argentine singer who was popular throughout South America and some countries outside the continent. With her roots in Argentine folk music, Sosa became one of the preeminent exponents of nueva canción. She gave voice to songs written by both...
and Ravi Shankar.
He had a knack for producing big shows that could focus the energy of an era. A birthday benefit concert
Benefit concert
A benefit concert or charity concert is a concert, show or gala featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate humanitarian crisis. Such events raise both funds and public awareness to address the cause at...
for Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
at Carnegie Hall in 1961 helped King appeal to the white general public. He produced fund raising tribute concerts for Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
, Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, the Spanish civil war
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
's Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Abraham Lincoln Brigade
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade refers to volunteers from the United States who served in the Spanish Civil War in the International Brigades. They fought for Spanish Republican forces against Franco and the Spanish Nationalists....
and, most memorably, for Woody Guthrie.
After Guthrie's death in 1967, Leventhal virtually adopted Woody's son Arlo
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...
, who worked in his office before making his hit record Alice's Restaurant
Alice's Restaurant
"Alice's Restaurant Massacree" is a musical monologue by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie released on his 1967 album Alice's Restaurant. The song is one of Guthrie's most prominent works, based on a true incident in his life that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965, and which inspired a 1969 movie of the...
. He helped produce the film based on that song, and later co-produced the Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
-winning Bound for Glory starring David Carradine
David Carradine
David Carradine was an American actor and martial artist, best known for his role as a warrior monk, Kwai Chang Caine, in the 1970s television series, Kung Fu, which later had a 1990s sequel series, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues...
as Woody Guthrie. Among his other films was the Weavers documentary Wasn't that a Time! (1984) and the Emmy-winning We Shall Overcome
We Shall Overcome
"We Shall Overcome" is a protest song that became a key anthem of the African-American Civil Rights Movement . The title and structure of the song are derived from an early gospel song by African-American composer Charles Albert Tindley...
(1988). Leventhal also produced theatre, starting with his fellow blacklister Will Geer
Will Geer
Will Geer was an American actor and social activist. His original name was William Aughe Ghere. He is remembered for his portrayal of Grandpa Zebulon Tyler Walton in the 1970s TV series, The Waltons....
performing Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
's 'America' off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
in 1952.
Reflecting his political and musical interests, he produced, among others, Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller was a US satirical novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His best known work is Catch-22, a novel about US servicemen during World War II...
's We Bombed in New Haven, Jules Epstein's But Seriously, Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
's King of the Dark Chamber and Jules Feiffer
Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer is an American syndicated cartoonist, most notable for his long-run comic strip titled Feiffer. He has created more than 35 books, plays and screenplays...
's The White House Murder Case.
Tribute
Fittingly, in 2003, Leventhal received his own tribute concert at Carnegie Hall. A film of that show, Isn't this a Time, was released in 2004. He may have been defined best in the programme notes for that concert, as embodying the definition of the Yiddish word, menschMensch
Mensch means "a person of integrity and honor". The opposite of a "mensch" is an "unmensch" . According to Leo Rosten, the Yiddish maven and author of The Joys of Yiddish, "mensch" is "someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character...
, meaning "man" in the sense of "an upright, honourable, decent person, someone of noble character".