Maynard Solomon

Maynard Solomon (born January 5, 1930) was a co-founder of Vanguard Records as well as a music producer. More recently, he has become known for his work on Viennese Classical music, specifically Beethoven (writing an influential biography and an award-winning collection of essays), Mozart (biography), and Schubert (Solomon was the first to openly propose Schubert's homosexuality in a scholarly setting).

Maynard Solomon founded Vanguard Records jointly with his brother Seymour Solomon in 1950. The label was one of the prime movers in the folk and blues boom for the next fifteen years. As well as producing many albums, he was a prolific writer of liner notes.

Vanguard's first signing was The Weavers. They generated the first major commercial success for the label with that group's 1955 Carnegie Hall concert. Solomon also acquired the rights to record and release material from the Newport Folk Festival, which meant he could issue recordings by artists who had not actually signed with Vanguard. In this period, Elektra was the main competitor for folk artists. Their singers, Phil Ochs and Judy Collins, were recorded at Newport, as was dynamic young Columbia artist Bob Dylan.

Solomon insisted on a clean appearance on stage, and clear diction, views in accord with majority public opinion at the time. More bravely, he signed Paul Robeson for Vanguard at the height of the McCarthy era.

In 1959, he signed Joan Baez, who would remain with the label for the next twelve years. Two years later, Vanguard recorded Odetta at Town Hall (New York). The Rooftop Singers recorded "Walk Right In" in 1963, a hit on both sides of the Atlantic produced by Solomon along with some of their other songs. Unfortunately their next single, "Tom Cat," was banned for being slightly suggestive, though tame by modern standards. It was probably Solomon's influence that induced Baez to record "Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5" by Villa-Lobos.

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