Biography

Harold Leventhal

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As a teenager, in the 1930s at the height of the Depression, Harold Leventhal was active in left-wing political causes before joining the Irving Berlin Music Co. at 20 years of age where he started as an office boy and rose to the position of music plugger. He served in the Signal Corps during World War II and in 1948 worked on the Henry Wallace Presidential Campaign. During the 1950s he became a key figure in the American Folk Movement becoming the manager for Pete Seeger and the Weavers and later played a major role in the career of Bob Dylan.
- IMDb mini biography by: Peter M. Hargrove
From the 1950s to the end of the 20th century, Harold Leventhal was a champion of folk music and introduced audiences to both foreign and American artists. It was Leventhal who presented a 21-year-old Bob Dylan at Town Hall in New York on April 12, 1963. He severed as the producer of the Thanksgiving folk concert at Carnegie Hall, which featured Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Leventhal won a Grammy in 1989 as a producer for the album "Folkways: A Vision Shared - A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly." He also produced several movies about the folk music world, including "Alice's Restaurant" in 1969; a 1976 biography of Woody Guthrie called "Bound for Glory"; and "Wasn't That a Time!" in 1982. "Bound For Glory" received Academy Awards for music and cinematography.
- IMDb mini biography by: Austin R. Taylor

Served in the US Signal Corps in India during World War II, where he met Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas K. Gandhi.
Manager and concert producer who worked with The Weavers, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, 'Lightnin' Hopkins', Mahalia Jackson, Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers, Johnny Cash, Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell, Jacques Brel, and Miriam Makeba, among many many others.
Was the inspiration for "Irving Steinbloom", the folk impresario whose death inspired the tribute concert in A Mighty Wind (2003).
1940s: Worked for the Irving Berlin Music Company, first as an office boy, later as a song plugger - pitching Irving Berlin's songs to the likes of Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. Later worked for Goodman's Regent Music Company.
Parents were Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Ukraine and Lithuania. His father died when Harold was 8 weeks old.

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