Sad news: John Goldsmith, the founder in 1968 of Unicorn Records, later Unicorn-Kanchana, has died.

Jun 17, 2020 | News | 10 comments

10 Comments

Andrew Keener on June 17, 2020 at 7:47 pm

Ah, another one-off personality gone from our profession. Not so many left of his ilk. Thanks, John, for some of the most influential ‘soundtracks’ to my Sixth Form and university years: Nielsen 5/Horenstein; Mahler 3 (ditto); Delius conducted by Eric Fenby. These three still occupy my vinyl shelves!
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- Mr Nick Goldsmith on November 12, 2022 at 1:54 am
  
  For no particular reason, I googled Dad and found all these lovely posts. We all miss him terribly, and I’ve since developed an appreciation of classical music I never had before. Nothing brings me more enjoyment of late than walking the fells of The Lake District, retracing hikes we used to take, whilst listening to some of his favourite pieces. Nick
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  - canderson on November 12, 2022 at 9:07 am
    
    Hi Nick, I’m so glad you found these comments. I had the pleasure of meeting your dad on a couple of occasions in the company of Mike and Tony, as below. Best wishes, Colin
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Robert Matthew-Walker on June 17, 2020 at 8:06 pm

How right you are, Andrew – John was a serving Metropolitan Policeman, he mortgaged his house to pay for Horenstein’s Mahler 3 when no-one in the major classical record companies would touch the conductor. John got his money back, with interest! A lovely man.
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Tony Faulkner on June 17, 2020 at 10:41 pm

I was a great Nielsen enthusiast in student days and was inspired by the Nielsen 5 Unicorn released, engineered by the late and great Bob Auger.

Before Unicorn John had been in police work, then at Record Hunter in Waterloo. John was very good to me in the 1970’s and 1980’s. I knew him through my first boss when I left uni, and he gave me several projects – including working with Eric Fenby.

We had kept in touch whenever he returned to London. Strangely I thought of him two days ago and was about to email him to check when we might next meet up.

A sad loss to the industry.
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Antony Hodgson on June 18, 2020 at 9:42 am

Well there is so much to remember about John Goldsmith with over half a century of knowing him. I recall record recitals for customers at Record Hunter where after a while Pat Plant and Harold Moores joined him. My first encounter in the Unicorn field concerned the refurbishing of Furtwängler tapes before moving on to new studio recordings. Early on there was a planned release of the Badura Skoda Beethoven Piano Sonatas – some LPs were issued but the project was never completed (what happened to the tapes that were awaiting publication?).
Always the expert entrepreneur I recall how businesslike he was in organising recordings with Leopold Stokowski (not for his own label). I believe he still has links with the Maestro’s family. His promotion of Jascha Horenstein was admirable. Here was a great conductor still not fully recognised in the UK at the time despite the availability of some notable Vox recordings. There is much treasure in the recordings he created – I wish they could be reissued in an orderly fashion – for example there are things by Paul Tortelier never heard since the days of LP. Then there were his other activities – I did not know him in his City Policemen days but I recall him as a devoted lover of the lake district round which he would give guided tours to visitors.
As has so often been the case with individual labels John Goldsmith’s Unicorn made an impact on the record market and it is for this he is remembered I also remember him as a constant friend whom it was always a pleasure to meet despite rarity since his move to the USA.
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Tully Potter on June 18, 2020 at 10:32 am

Of John’s great enthusiasms, the only one that ‘fitted’ with me was Delius, at a time when I was still discovering ‘English’ music. So it is not the pioneer that I recall so much as the friendly record shop proprietor who created a unique atmosphere at The Record Hunter. The very name of the place chimed with the collector’s fever that in my case had been raging since I was 11. John was a thoroughly nice guy and unfailingly helpful, and we kept in loose touch for the rest of his life. I’m glad he made it into his 80s – I had no idea that he was a few years younger than I. He always seemed so youthful.
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Tully Potter on June 18, 2020 at 10:34 am

Senior moment: Of course I meant that John was a few years older!
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Mike Langhorne on June 18, 2020 at 2:23 pm

John was one of my dearest and oldest friends. We first met over 50 years ago in his Record Hunter shop at Waterloo where I was a frequent customer. We discovered that our girlfriends were nurses at the same hospital and we soon all found ourselves heading for the Lake District many times together and later at recording sessions for his record label Unicorn. Our friendship lasted through the years and when visiting New York in 2011 we were invited up to his home near Albany where he and his wife Diane were perfect hosts. This year we were expecting to see them in May when they were due to visit the UK. Alas it was not to be due to the lockdown. I am glad we spoke over the phone on the Monday before he suffered his stroke when he seemed fine. Jan and I will miss him terribly and send our heartfelt condolences to Diane and his children.
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Jeffrey Davis on December 22, 2020 at 11:20 am

I’m very sorry to hear this sad news. I remember having a nice chat with him on the phone. He was telling me that, due to economic constraints, Unicorn were issuing compilations from existing releases and I have the Bernard Herrmann Psycho/North by Northwest compilation – it is most enjoyable and I have played it several times over the past few days. I collected many of their releases including the great Horenstein Nielsen’s 5th symphony, with a fine performance from the side-drummer and David Measham’s poetic recording of Miaskovsky’s 21st Symphony plus much more besides. Never knew he was a policeman.
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