Izzy Young obituary
He was not on the list.
Izzy Young, the folk music promoter and archivist who produced Bob Dylan’s first major concert at Carnegie Chapter Hall in 1961, has died.
Young died Monday at his home in Stockholm. He was 90.
Israel Young was born in 1928 to Polish immigrants on the Lower East Side. His mother inspired him with Yiddish songs and he worked at his father’s bakery in Brooklyn.
When Izzy opened the Folklore Center in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1957, he wanted it to be a combination of all his passions. It was a music store, a bookstore, an archive, a place where artists could sit for hours listening to old recordings, writing or schmoozing. Young became a mentor to many of the most renowned beat poets and folk musicians of that era.
Dylan immortalized Young in the 1969 song “Talking Folklore Center”:
Izzy Young, the folk music promoter and archivist who produced Bob Dylan’s first major concert at Carnegie Chapter Hall in 1961, has died.
Young died Monday at his home in Stockholm. He was 90.
Israel Young was born in 1928 to Polish immigrants on the Lower East Side. His mother inspired him with Yiddish songs and he worked at his father’s bakery in Brooklyn.
When Izzy opened the Folklore Center in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1957, he wanted it to be a combination of all his passions. It was a music store, a bookstore, an archive, a place where artists could sit for hours listening to old recordings, writing or schmoozing. Young became a mentor to many of the most renowned beat poets and folk musicians of that era.
Dylan immortalized Young in the 1969 song “Talking Folklore Center”:
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“On MacDougal Street I saw a cubby hole,
I went in to get out of the cold,
Found out after I’d entered
The place was called the Folklore Center —
Owned by Israel Young —
He’s always in back —
Of the center.”
Young closed the Greenwich Village shop in 1973 and moved to Stockholm, where he started a similar enterprise, the Folklore Centrum.
In 2016, Young shipped 20 boxes to the American Folklife Center in Washington, DC. Inside were journals, manuscripts, photographs and recordings of some of America’s greatest musicians, including Pete Seeger and Dylan.
Israel Goodman Young was born on March 26, 1928, at the Lower East Side of Manhattan, to Polish Jewish immigrant parents, Philip and Pola Young. His father was a baker. Izzy Young grew up in the Bronx where he finished high school. He attended Brooklyn College. From 1948 to 1952 he worked in his father's bakery in Brooklyn. He later went into the book business.
In 1957, at 110 MacDougal Street in New York City's Greenwich Village, he opened the Folklore Center, a store for books and records and everything related to folk music. It became a focal point for the American folk music scene of the time, a place where one could find such limited circulation publications as Caravan and Gardyloo, both edited and published by Lee Hoffman. From 1959 to 1969, Young wrote a column entitled "Fret and Frails" for the folk music journal Sing Out. He served on the "editorial advisory board" for the magazine until his departure for Sweden a few years later.
Young arranged concerts with folk musicians and songwriters, who often made contacts with other musicians at the Folklore Center. Bob Dylan relates in his memoirs, Chronicles, how he spent time at the Center, where Young allowed him to sit in the backroom of the store, listening to folk music records and reading books. Dylan met Dave Van Ronk in the store, and Young produced Dylan's first concert at Carnegie Chapter Hall in New York City on Saturday, November 4, 1961. Bob Dylan wrote a song about the store and Young entitled "Talking Folklore Center". Young gave interviews about their relationship for the documentary No Direction Home.
Other notable figures that played concerts early in their career at the Folklore Center include Peter Paul and Mary, John Sebastian from the Lovin' Spoonful (Young managed one of Sebastian’s early bands), Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris and Tim Buckley. A live album by Buckley recorded at the Folklore Centre in 1967 was released in 2009. Patti Smith used to read poetry there and also became friends with Young.
Young was also a keen political activist. He famously led a march in 1961, which became known as “the beatnik riot” in protest at a ban on the public performance of music in Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park. Young pursued the case through the courts, eventually winning the removal of the ban. He would later champion the plight of Cambodians affected by the US war in Vietnam as well as Palestinians.
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