Music of the U.S. Popular Front (Keynote Recordings Leftist Music Discography) [1937-1947]
33 videos • 444 views • by LMR Keynote Recordings was an NYC-based record label founded in 1937 by Eric Bernay. Bernay was the child of Ukrainian immigrants and a committed member of the American Communist Party (CPUSA), which was at its height during that period, having just under 100,000 members and significant influence in the labor movement, specifically the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU). In the years leading up to the founding of Keynote, Bernay worked for the CPUSA-affiliated magazine, The New Masses. While Keynote Recordings was not directly affiliated with the CPUSA, Bernay used the label to release music by prominent CPUSA members and supporters, including Paul Robeson, Josh White, Earl Robinson, and The Almanac Singers (which was made up of a rotating cast that included Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Florence Reese, and Lee Hays), as well as re-issues of leftist music from around the world, notably the German communist singer/activist Ernst Busch's famous album of Spanish Republican Songs 'Six Songs For Democracy.' However, as the right-wing House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) became more radical and the Second Red Scare began, Bernay started to release less and less politically oriented music, focusing more on apolitical jazz and pop. In fact, while I haven't included these tunes here, some of the biggest names in jazz recorded small-group sessions for Keynote and those records are worth checking out. These artists included Coleman Hawkins, Lennie Tristano, Red Rodney, Juan Tizol, and Red Norvo. Between 1947 and 1948, Keynote Recordings experienced financial difficulties resulting from Capitol Records cancelling its contractual agreement to press Keynote records and the label eventually closed. This cancellation was most likely due to Bernay's politics which, like most other left-wingers, led to his blacklisting by the federal government during the Second Red Scare. He struggled for the rest of his life and died in relative obscurity in 1968. Most of the leftist music of Keynote Recording was eventually re-issued, the most well-known of which is the Folkways 1955 re-issue of The Almanac Singers' 'Talking Union,' which was originally released on Keynote in 1941. The fact that Eric Bernay is completely unknown, despite his large influence on leftist music in the U.S., is one of many tragedies that resulted from the Second Red Scare, a era that is almost completely erased from popular accounts of U.S. history. For instance, most people are unaware that thousands of U.S. citizens were blacklisted by the U.S. government for affiliations with socialist and communist groups, which resulted in their surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies and inability to find regular work for decades. Fortunately for us, however, the music of Keynote Recordings has survived. Enjoy comrades! Solidarity!