I hope this is properly forwarded -- Steve's inquiry about Period Records
and Ben and Helen Lebow's role in it, and David's response. I am remain a
computer idiot.
I don't know about Period and David does better than I, but I do know
about
the Lebows. I knew Helen Lebow fairly well. (Her name was indeed Helen.)
When
I met her, in the early '70s, she was a widow living by herself in a part
of
New York City; we had to cross a bridge to drive to her place -- sorry,
I'm
not a NYCer! She said Ben had died suddenly and fairly young, perhaps in
the
'50s. She told us (Andy Karzas and me) that Ben had been blacklisted
during the
McCarthy years, after 1951 or so (I don't know why except that he was a
liberal), but he was out of work, they were about to starve, and Ben
approached
Period with the idea of doing the various "appreciations" or
"understandings" of
great music and its composers. That's how it happened.
If Helen told us what Ben had been doing before everything collapsed on
them, I don't remember. But he was probably involved with records somehow,
which
might be why he pursued Period. She did say that she thought Ben had died
partly from the effects of the stress of the McCarthyite persecution.
At the time I met and got to know her, Helen Lebow was running Club 99 LP
historical vocal reissues. She was very conscientious about transfers and
proper reproduction, as I recall. It had been Ben's pet project and she
still had
his impressive collection of shellac vocal records.
Don Tait