User:Vexton/sandbox/Manny Greenhill

Manuel `Manny’ Greenhill (March 10, 1916 – April 14, 1996) was a manager and presenter of folk singers and publisher of their songs. (1) A child of (and activist in) the Depression-era Left, Greenhill saw the American folk music revival of the 1950s-60s as a catalyst for progressive social change and cross cultural dialogue. As her manager, he leveraged the popularity of Joan Baez to contractually insist that her audiences be integrated at venues in the American South and anywhere segregation persisted. He was the first to present bluegrass pioneers Flatt & Scruggs to audiences in the Northeast. Their 1962 appearances galvanized the first generation of urban bluegrass enthusiasts, among them banjoist Bill Keith and mandolinist David Grisman. Greenhill represented several important exponents of African-American musical traditions, among them Jesse `Lone Cat’ Fuller and Rev. Gary Davis, and established song publishing companies to protect artists from the common practice of song appropriation. Greenhill shepherded the career of guitarist-singer Arthel `Doc’ Watson from the early `60s coffee houses to the concert halls and festivals that welcomed Watson following his appearance on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s groundbreaking (and widely popular) 1972 album Will the Circle be Unbroken. Greenhill’s Folklore Productions also represented pioneers of what came to called world music, among them Nubian oud player Hamza El Din and Tejano accordionist-singer Santiago Jiménez Jr. The Folklore umbrella also covered creative musical syncretists, among them American Primitive Guitar pioneer John Fahey and English `folk baroque’ guitarists-singers John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. Greenhill remained active booking artists and overseeing song publishing until diagnosed with leukemia in 1996. Greenhill’s significant role in the American urban folk music revival was honored posthumously in 2007 at the national conference of the Folk Alliance organization with The Elaine Weissman Lifetime Achievement Award. (2) Early life Manuel A. `Manny’ Greenhill, birth name Mendel Greenberg, was born March 10, 1916 in New York City. He came of age during the Great Depression and was swept up in that era’s progressive political movements. Greenhill spent several years as a union activist, and in that context heard the Almanac Singers, which included Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. “He is the Johnny Appleseed of the folk song revival,” Greenhill said of Seeger. “I’m one of his seeds.” (3) At a 1941 May Day event, Greenhill met Leona Wechsler. They married in December of that year, and would have two children, Mitch, born in 1944, and Deborah, born in 1948. His son was born while Greenhill was serving in the U.S. Army, stationed in Honolulu, Hawaii. The following year Greenhill was honorably discharged from the service, having attained the rank of second lieutenant. Career: 1950s The Greenhill family moved from New York City to Boston in 1952. Greenhill developed a business there representing foreign language newspapers to potential advertisers. But changing times offered an opportunity: the muzzle the McCarthy-era Red Scare had clamped on the progressive folk song movement of the 1940s was loosening by the later 1950s. In the Fall of 1957, Greenhill presented the inaugural Folklore Concert Series at Boston’s fabled Jordan Hall. Among the performers were two of his mentors, Pete Seeger and the man who had given him guitar lessons during his union days, Josh White. The success of the series, which would also present Odetta, Theo Bikel, and Mahalia Jackson, prompted Greenhill to establish Folklore Productions the same year. He played a role in the survival of The Weavers, according to the group’s manager Harold Leventhal: “The Weavers were the only group in the music business that was hit by the blacklist,” Leventhal recalled. “I spent a lot of time direct booking the group. And our sources were guys like Manny Greenhill, who was then in Boston. I would call Manny and tell him to run the Weavers concert up there, guaranteeing him that he can’t lose money…” (4) In 1958 or `59, the entrepreneurial Greenhill joined forces with George Wein to open a nightclub in Boston catering to folk singers and their audiences called The Ballad Room. Greenhill’s catholic tastes were reflected in the diversity of artists who performed there, from urban blues legends Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon to pioneering old time music revivalists the New Lost City Ramblers to a young lady who had recently arrived in Boston from California, Joan Baez. She appeared at the inaugural Newport Folk Festival in 1959. (5) Career: 1960s The groundwork Greenhill laid in the 1950s bore abundant fruit in the early 1960s as the marginally underground folk music revival blossomed into a national pop music subgenre. Greenhill’s reach and grasp expanded exponentially. In 1960 Albert Baez asked Greenhill to `take care of’ his then-nineteen-year-old daughter, whose popularity snowballed after her Newport Folk Festival debut. Joan became Greenhill’s first client as personal manager and booking agent, even as he continued to present concerts in the Northeast. By 1962 Baez was on the cover of Time magazine; (6) the following year she sang at the March on Washington, (7) a watershed moment in the American Civil Rights Movement. Greenhill sensed its significance and attended with his entire immediate family. Baez went on a Southern colleges tour in 1963-64; the contractual prohibition against her appearing before segregated audiences meant many concerts were at largely black colleges. The activism of the era soon voiced opposition to the Vietnam War. Baez appeared at Washington’s Constitution Hall in 1965 without incident, but was later barred from the venue by the Daughters of the American Revolution. (8) She then gave a free concert on the grounds of the Washington Monument the day after her cancelled Constitution Hall date, August 14, 1967. Baez may have been Greenhill’s most famous (and overtly political) client of the 1960s, but she was far from the sole significant artist then represented by Folklore Productions. Others included Doc and Merle Watson, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Rosalie Sorrels, Dave Van Ronk, and Scottish singer Jean Redpath. Greenhill was the talent coordinator for the 1966 CBC-TV documentary Bell Telephone Presents the Blues featuring (among others) Jesse Fuller, Willie Dixon, and Muddy Waters. (9) Shepherding his clients’ songs into publishing companies bore sweet fruit in the 1960s: Peter, Paul & Mary recorded Gary Davis’ “Samson and Delilah (If I Had My Way)” (10) in 1962; the Grateful Dead began performing Jesse Fuller’s “Beat It On Down the Line” in 1966, and later decades yielded similar successes. Greenhill took a personal interest in his clients, loaning Rev. Gary Davis $500 to buy his beloved `Miss Gibson’ Gibson J-200 guitar. (11) But he kept a keen eye on Folklore’s bottom line, too, experimenting in 1966-67 with booking popular rock acts such as The Doors and Jefferson Airplane into major Boston venues: he was reputedly the only promoter who could book rock acts into Boston’s Symphony Hall. As a fitting coda to the decade, Greenhill escorted Baez to her performance at the Woodstock Festival, Aug. 15, 1969. (12) Career: 1970s-1990s The decade of the 1970s was a transitional time in Greenhill’s life and career. At age 55 he left Boston, settling in Santa Monica, CA in 1971. For a time Folklore Productions had an office above the carousel on the Santa Monica Pier. The company continued to represent and present eclectic artists, including Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa, singer-guitarist Geoff Muldaur, and Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers. Major changes came in 1976: Joan Baez left Folklore, while Greenhill’s son Mitch joined the business. The following year Greenhill produced the `live’ double album Old Timey Concert for the Vanguard label featuring singer-multi-instrumentalist Doc Watson with singer-guitarist Clint Howard and singer-fiddler Fred Price. Doc and Merle Watson earned a couple of Grammys that decade in the category of Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording for Then and Now (1973) and Two Days in November (1974). (13)  The 1980s-90s saw Folklore continue to shepherd the careers of many of its core artists from the 1960s (Watson, Van Ronk, Sorrels) while presenting and representing an increasingly diverse and international artist roster (Beausoleil, Alan Stivell, Keola Beamer, Battlefield Band, The Campbell Brothers, Toumani Diabate, Taj Mahal). The heirs of deceased Folklore artists benefitted from the company’s song administration and meticulous eye on what got covered. Jesse Fuller passed away sixteen years before Eric Clapton covered his “San Francisco Bay Blues” on his Unplugged album and video. (Paul McCartney also performed it as a bonus track on a concert DVD.) Greenhill collected the proper royalties and recalled: “I gave the check to Mrs. Fuller, who couldn’t see so good. She squinted and asked her daughter, `Does that say $6,000?’ Alice said, `No, Mama. It says $60,000.’” (14) Legacy Following Greenhill’s 1996 death his son Mitch continued to run Folklore Productions and was joined the following year by Manny’s grandson Matt Greenhill. Folklore Productions operates today as FLi Artists. (15) References

1. “Manuel A. Greenhill; Folk Singers’ Manager” LOS ANGELES 29 2007 TIMES, APRIL 17, 1996 2. Olesko, Ron “Folk Alliance Awards” Feb. 27, 2007 Sing Out! 3. Manny Greenhill interviewed by Jim Rooney and quoted in Folklore Productions, The First 50 Years Folklore Productions, p. 29 4. Harold Leventhal quoted by Mary Katherine Aldin, p. 22 of  the booklet for the box set The Weavers: Wasn’t That a Time, Vanguard VCD4-147/50, 1993 5. Gillis, James J. “Looking Back: Festival and Folk Music Have Come a Long Way Since 1959” Newport Daily News July 31, 2009 (Posted July 25, 2018) 6. “Folk Singing: Sibyl with Guitar,” Time, Nov. 23, 1962 7. Remnick, David “Joan Baez Is Still Protesting” The New Yorker Radio Hour Oct. 16, 2018 8. “Joan Baez Barred from D.A.R.’s Hall,” New York Times, Aug. 13, 1967 9. “The Day the Blues Came to Town,” CBC-TV, posted Nov. 15, 2018 https://www.cbc.ca/television/fromthevaults/the-day-the-blues-came-to-town-1.4903425 10. Blackman, Patrick “Samson and Delilah/If I Had My Way” Sing Out! March 11, 2019 https://singout.org/samson-and-delilah-if-i-had-my-way/2/

11. von Schmidt, Eric and Kruth, John “Remembering Reverend Gary Davis” Sing Out! LI/4 [winter 2008] pp. 66–75 Quoted online https://bibliolore.org/2016/04/30/reverend-gary-davis-and-miss-gibson/ 12. Greene, Andy “Joan Baez Looks Back at Woodstock: `It Was the Eye of the Hurricane’” Rolling Stone, Aug. 14, 2019 https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/joan-baez-woodstock-69-866677/ 13. McPhate, Tim, Doc Watson, 1923-2012 https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/doc-watson-1923%E2%80%932012 14.	 Manny Greenhill quoted in Folklore Productions: The first 50 Years, p. 41 2007

Manny Greenhill quoted in Folklore Productions: The first 50 Years, p. 41 2007 15. Aldin, Mary Katherine and von Schmidt, Eric `Last Chorus: Manny Greenhill’ Sing Out! 41 no. 2 Aug-Oct. 1996

Further reading

Baez, Joan And a Voice to Sing With Summit Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1987 ISBN 9780451167446 (pp 63, 64, 71)

Bikel, Theo Theo: The Autobiography 1994 University of Wisconsin Press p. 268 ISBN 978-0-299-18284-7

Cook, John Byrne On the Road with Janis Joplin 2014 Penguin Group USA ISBN 10: 0425274128

Didion, Joan Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1968 ISBN: 9780374531386 Freedman, Jean R. Peggy Seeger: A Life of Music, Love and Politics University of Illinois Press 2017 ISBN 9780252040757 Goodman, Fred The Mansion on the Hill – Dylan, Young, Springsteen, and the Head-On Collision of Rock and Commerce, First Vintage Books 1997 (p 87) ISBN 0224050621

Hajdu, David Positively 4th Street 2001, Farrar Straus and Giroux (pp 26, 27, 55, 56, 88, 89, 119, 120, 144, 159, 208, 228,237,238, 255, 272) ISBN 978-0-374-28199-1

Rosenberg, Neil V. Bluegrass A History University of Illinois 1985 (pp 166, 183, 185, 189) ISBN 0252002652

von Schmidt, Eric and Rooney, Jim Baby Let Me Follow You Down,  Second Edition 1994, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst. (Original edition 1979.) pp 22-25, 42, 54, 75, 80-82, 96, 99, 103 et al ISBN 10- 0870239252

Zack, Ian: Say No to the Devil: The Life and Musical Genius of Rev. Gary Davis University of Chicago Press 2015 ISBN 9780226380988.

External links Allen, Kellie and Peterson, Pete: The Brandywine Friends of Old Time Music, Then and Now ( Re: presenting Ralph Stanley and Dewey Balfa in New England) The Old-Time Herald, Vol. 11, no. 5 http://www.oldtimeherald.org/archive/back_issues/volume-11/11-5/brandywine.html Brunnings, Florence June 10, 1969 letter re: founding of The Folk Song Society of Greater Boston https://www.fssgb.org/images/FlorenceLetter1969-760.jpg

Gilford, Steve “Connections to Folk Music” SoCoFoSo June 13, 2018 https://socofoso.com/folk-notes/connections-to-folk-music/ (re: Manny’s role in undated Seeger-Baez appearance at Yale)

Greenhill Family/FLi Artists/Folklore Productions Collection, 1947-2014, Southern Folklife Collection, University of North Carolina

https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/20542/

https://socofoso.com/folk-notes/connections-to-folk-music/ Greenhill Family/Folklore Productions, 1960-2000 https://cambridgehistory.org/research/greenhill-familyfolklore-productions-1960-2000/ Greenhill, Mitch “Folklore Productions and Manny Greenhill” http://maynesmith.com/pdfs/Folklore%20Productions%20and%20Manny%20Greenhill.pdf

Re: Bill Keith and helping to found Connecticut Folklore Society https://music.apple.com/au/artist/bill-keith/2523917 Photo with Dylan https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/555631672768554872/ Wiki link: Rosalie Sorrels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalie_Sorrels Re: managing Richard and Mimi Farina http://www.richardandmimi.com/collaborators.html

Categories 1916 births 1996 deaths American Army personnel of World War II American music managers American folk music revival Music promoters Music publishers