Israel Goodman Young (March 26, 1928 – February 4, 2019), known as Izzy Young, was a noted figure in the world of

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...

, both in

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

. He was once the owner of the Folklore Center in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, and from 1973 until his death, owned and operated the Folklore Centrum store in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

Biography

Israel Goodman Young was born on March 26, 1928 at the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

of Manhattan, to Polish Jewish immigrant parents, Philip and Pola Young. His father was a baker. Izzy Young grew up in

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...

where he finished high school. He attended

Brooklyn College , mottoeng = Nothing without great effort , established = , parent = CUNY , type = Public university , endowment = $98.0 million (2019) , budget = $123.96 m ...

. 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 MacDougal Street is a one-way street in the Greenwich Village and SoHo neighborhoods of Manhattan, New York City. The street is bounded on the south by Prince Street and on the north by West 8th Street; its numbering begins in the south. Betw ...

in New York City's

, 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 Lee Hoffman, born Shirley Bell Hoffman, (August 14, 1932 in Chicago, Illinois – February 6, 2007 in Port Charlotte, Florida) was an American science fiction fan, an editor of early folk music fanzines, and an author of science fiction, Western ...

. 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 Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

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 David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002) was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of M ...

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's Carnegie Hall Debut: A Half Century Later"
, ''carnegiehall.org'', The Carnegie Hall Corporation, Friday, November 4, 2011. 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 Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her st ...

Emmylou Harris Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter and musician. She has released dozens of albums and singles over the course of her career and has won 14 Grammys, the Polar Music Prize, and numerous other honors, includin ...

and

Tim Buckley Timothy Charles Buckley III (February 14, 1947 – June 29, 1975) was an American musician. His music and style changed considerably through the years. Buckley began his career based in folk music, but his subsequent albums experimented with ...

. 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.

Move to Sweden

After developing an interest in Swedish folk music at a festival, Young closed his New York store in 1973 and moved to Stockholm where he opened the Folklore Centrum at Roslagsgatan in Vasastan. In 1986 he relocated the store to Wollmar Yxkullsgatan 2 in Södermalm where he remained till the end of 2018 when he retired from a regular series of folk music concerts spanning decades. The concerts featured prominent traditional Swedish folk musicians, enthusiasts from Stockholm who played music from other places, and international artists from all over the world. In 1974 Young arranged a concert with

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notabl ...

in the auditorium of Uppsala University. A recording was made and released on the LP record "If A Revolution Comes To My Country ..." (October Stereo OSLP-508). Young's personal diaries, notes, photos, newspaper clips, and other documentation have been transferred to the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morg ...

, where they now constitute The Izzy Young Collection. A large part of Young's extensive library was in 2018 donated to the museum Mannaminne^{( sv)} at Nordingrå, Sweden. Young's research and documentation of Cambodia's history from the 1960s onwards was donated in 2001 to the "Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies" at Lund University (the ''HT'' libraries). Young celebrated his 90th birthday at the Swedish Folklore Centrum in March 2018. At that time Young remarkably was still opening the “store” on a daily basis and hosting regular concerts there in the same way he had for over 60 years. Due to Young’s fading health, the store closed at the end of November.

Personal life and death

He was the father of the actress and television presenter Philomène Grandin. Israel "Izzy" Young died at the age of 90 in Stockholm, Sweden on February 4, 2019. He spent his last days surrounded by his family, closest friends, and live music.

Publications

* Young, Israel G., My Happy Life On Earth Seems But an Hour - The Poetry of Israel Goodman Young. © 2017 Israel G. Young. Edited by Rebecca Petra Naomi Seeman. * Young, Israel G., I Like Folk Music - The Essays of Israel Goodman Young. © 2017 Israel G. Young. Edited by Rebecca Petra Naomi Seeman. * Young, Israel G.
''The Conscience of the Folk Revival: The Writings of Israel "Izzy" Young''
Edited by Scott Baretta © 2013 Scarecrow Press, Inc. * Young, Israel G., One Night Stands - en square-dance kväll med Izzy Young. © 1983 Folklore Centrum. * Young, Israel G., Autobiography * The Bronx * 1928-1938. Photographs by David Gahr, Introduction by Moses Asch, © 1969 Folklore Center Press, New York City.

References

External links