Izzy Young

Israel Goodman Young or Izzy Young (born 26 March 1928) is a noted figure in the world of folk music, both in America and Sweden. He is the former owner of the Folklore Center in Greenwich Village, New York, and since 1973, he has owned and operated the Folklore Centrum store in Stockholm.

Israel Goodman Young was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, to Polish immigrant parents, Philip and Pola Young. His father was a baker. Izzy Young grew up in the Bronx where he finished high school. He attended Brooklyn College. From 1948 to 1952 he worked in his father's bakery in Brooklyn. He later went into the book business.

In 1957, at 110 MacDougal Street in New York City's Greenwich Village, he opened the Folklore Center, a store for books and records and everything related to folk music. It became a focal point for the American folk music scene of the time, a place where one could find such limited circulation publications as Caravan and Gardyloo, both edited and published by Lee Hoffman. From 1959 to 1969, Young wrote a column entitled "Fret and Frails" for the folk music journal Sing Out. He served on the "editorial advisory board" for the magazine until his departure for Sweden a few years later.

Young arranged concerts with folk musicians and songwriters, who often made contacts with other musicians at the Folklore Center. Bob Dylan relates in his memoirs, Chronicles, how he spent time at the Center, where Young allowed him to sit in the backroom of the store, listening to folk music records and reading books. Dylan met Dave Van Ronk in the store, and Young produced Dylan's first concert at Carnegie Chapter Hall in New York City on Saturday, November 4, 1961.

Bob Dylan wrote a song about the store and Young entitled "Talking Folklore Center".

After developing an interest in Swedish folk music at a festival, Young closed his New York store, and in 1973, he moved to Stockholm where he opened the Folklore Centrum. Originally at Roslagsgatan in the Vasastan, it has been located on Wollmar Yxkullsgatan at Södermalm since 1986.

He is the father of the actress and television presenter Philomène Grandin.

• Young, Izzy, The Conscience of the Folk Revival: The Writings of Israel "Izzy" Young, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2013.