Kenton, Gary, 1950-

Gary Kenton (1950-) is a music critic, editor, and teacher of Greensboro, N.C.

Gary Kenton was born 23 July 1950 in Roslyn, N.Y. He attended Boston University from 1968 to 1970. In the summer of 1969, Kenton started work as music review editor at Fusion Magazine . He stayed at Fusion until 1973, when he was recruited by Barry Kramer, publisher of Creem, a Detroit-based music magazine. As editor of Creem, Kenton worked with noted rock and roll critics Lester Bangs, Dave Marsh, and others. In 1974, he moved to New York City where he began working for various record companies as a writer and publicist before starting his own public relations company.

It was as a journalist that Kenton came into contact with Moses Asch, co-founder of Folkways Records. For several years in the early 1980s, he conducted interviews with Moe, his family members, and his business associates for a biography while arranging for other journalists to do stories on Folkways and Folkways releases.

In the mid-1980s, Kenton moved to North Carolina to raise a family and began work as editor of a start-up weekly newspaper in Greensboro. Motivated by his son's autism, he earned his B.A. in special education from Greensboro College in 1994. Kenton lives in Greensboro, where he works as a special education teacher at a large urban high school.

Moses Asch (1905-1986) was a Polish-born record industry executive and the son of noted Yiddish author Sholem Asch. Asch got started in the music business by installing sound equipment in Yiddish theaters in New York City. In 1939, he began to issue records under the Asch label. His great interest was folk music, and he made recordings of Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Josh White, Burl Ives, and others. With partner Marian Distler, he started the Folkways label in 1947. Eventually he published more than 2,000 albums, documenting traditional music from around the world.