Eric Bernay

(1906 - 1968)(né Bernstein) American record producer, best known for founding [l=Keynote Recordings (2)]. Born in Odessa, Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian Empire; he came to the United States as an infant.

Member of the Communist Party from 1936 to 1938; publisher / treasurer for the official Party organ [i]The New Masses[/i] and owner of the mid-town Manhattan record store, The Music Room. Established Keynote in 1937 to promote Soviet [a=Artkino Pictures] releases and like-minded American folk musicians. Ranging widely between isolationist / anti-war in the extreme and jingoistic as The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact came and went.

He employed both Irving Lerner and Arthur Adams at Keynote. Lerner had to leave the Office of War Information after being caught photographing the cyclotron at the University of California, Berkeley. Adams, a Soviet atomic spy, was hired in 1945 for $75 per week as a 'plastics consultant' (see Artkino profile.)

Among his early recordings are the [a=The Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble] and the [m=1885443]. Loyalist music of the Spanish Civil War, sung by [a=Ernst Busch], recorded in Barcelona while under siege in 1938, with a chorus of veterans of the Thälmann Battalion. ([a=Spanish Republican Army Chorus And Orchestra]); works by [a=Paul Robeson], [a=Woody Guthrie], [a=Pete Seeger] notablely [a=The Almanac Singers]' debut album [r=8615326].