Vanguard Records

Did You Know?

• Vanguard's first record was of J.S. Bach's 21st cantata, BWV 21, conducted by Jonathan Sternberg with tenor Hugues Cuénod; it remained in the catalog as SC-501 as of a 1966 Billboard article.
• The English band Stereolab took their name from Vanguard's brief hi-fi division, Vanguard Stereolab.
• In 1966, Vanguard released the three-album series Chicago/The Blues/Today!, featuring Junior Wells with Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, and Muddy Waters's bandmates Otis Spann and James Cotton.
• Vanguard was the first American label to release the complete 1944 high fidelity recordings of Richard Strauss conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in his tone poems, made on Magnetophon tape equipment.
• The label earned three consecutive Grammy Awards for Levon Helm and an RIAA certified platinum single for Matt Nathanson's 'Come on Get Higher.'

History

Vanguard Records launched with a recording of Bach’s Cantata BWV 21, conducted by Jonathan Sternberg and featuring tenor Hugues Cuénod. A 1966 Billboard piece noted that this performance, still available as SC-501, exemplified the Solomons’ commitment to quality; of the label’s roughly 480 releases under Vanguard and Bach Guild, 30 were Bach recordings. Beyond Bach, the catalog included English Madrigal School works by the Deller Consort, Italian and French madrigals, Elizabethan and Jacobean pieces, and music by Henry Purcell.

In 1951, art director Jules Halfant brought Marxist critic Sidney Finkelstein on staff; Finkelstein stayed until 1973, primarily writing classical liner notes. During the mid-1950s, Vanguard signed blacklisted artists Paul Robeson and the Weavers. Folk music expanded with Joan Baez, Hedy West, Eric Andersen, the Rooftop Singers, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ian and Sylvia, and Mimi and Richard Fariña. The company briefly operated a hi-fi division called Vanguard Stereolab, which later inspired the name of the band Stereolab.

In 1953, John Hammond launched the Jazz Showcase series, focusing on mainstream jazz and producing about two dozen records before its 1958 end. Recordings from the 1938 and 1939 Spirituals to Swing concerts were issued by Vanguard in 1959, after which jazz recording became sporadic. In summer 1965, Maynard Solomon hired Samuel Charters to edit tapes from the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. Charters then traveled to Chicago to document the city’s blues scene, resulting in the 1966 three-album set Chicago/The Blues/Today!.

That series featured Junior Wells with Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Homesick James, Johnny Shines, Big Walter Horton, Charlie Musselwhite, and Muddy Waters’s bandmates Otis Spann and James Cotton.