Stinson Records

About

American record label founded in 1939 by the Stinson Trading Co.. The first black label issues do not bear any label name (enter as Not On Label), but are reissues of the Soviet-made The New York Fair 1939 records that were sold in the souvenir shop of the Soviet pavilion on the fair and sold out quickly. The reissues feature slightly smaller labels and read "Recorded in Soviet Union" instead of "Made in Soviet Union" at the bottom. From ca. 1940, after the Soviets had left the fair, the Stinson Trading Co. continued to sell its remakes of the The New York Fair 1939 series. They still featured the "Worker with a Star" logo on a black label and read "Recorded in Soviet Union" but now without label or series name. The label of these reissues may be entered as Stinson Records. From 1942-1946, the Stinson Trading Co. had a partnership with Asch Recordings but it was dissolved shortly afterwards when Stinson bought out engineer-producer Moses Asch and the latter went on to form Disc Records. These 1942-1946 labels were red and continued to feature the "Worker with a Star" logo and no label name. After Herbert Harris, Noel Meadow, and Irving Prosky of Stinson Trading Co. formally parted ways with Asch in 1946, the company's records began to feature the label name Stinson Records. The label mainly reissued Asch's catalog of influential American jazz, folk and blues, including Woody Guthrie and Josh White. Its co-founders Meadow and Prosky retired soon afterwards, leaving the Harris family as sole owners of the record label from its beginnings. By 2019, Smithsonian Folkways had acquired all of the various catalogs.