Folkways Records - A Visual History of Folkways Records Cover Art

Soul Jazz Records’ Folkways Records: A Visual History of Folkways Records Cover Art is a deluxe 12” x 12” hardback featuring hundreds of record sleeve artworks from Smithsonian Folkways. Folkways Records was founded in 1948 by Moses Asch, a Polish émigré in New York, after Albert Einstein encouraged him to document the sounds of the world.

Between 1949 and 1987, Folkways released over 2,000 recordings spanning jazz, folk, avant-garde, world, nature sounds, spoken word, electronic modernism and civil rights speeches. The book focuses on striking sleeve designs across that catalogue, many by Ronald Clyne, whose work gave the label a distinctive visual identity.

Artists featured include Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Nikki Giovanni, Pete Seeger, Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Dizzy Gillespie, John Cage and Charles Ives. After Asch’s death in 1986, the catalogue was donated to the Smithsonian, creating Smithsonian Folkways in 1987.