Dean Gitter

Dean L. Gitter (born 1935), is an entrepreneur and a real estate developer in the Catskills in New York State.^[1][2]

Gitter is a graduate of Phillips Academy, Harvard College, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and the Harvard Business School.^[3]

In the 1950s, Gitter produced recordings for Riverside Records, notably Odetta's debut album, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues. Under the pseudonym of Dean Laurence, he produced Sam Gary's only album for the Esquire (UK) and Transition (US) labels.^[4]

In 1957, Gitter recorded Ghost Ballads, released by Riverside Records. This album features Gitter singing, accompanied by his own acoustic guitar, and contains folk songs with supernatural themes. The album cover art is by Charles Addams.^[5][6]

In 1969, Gitter's University Cinema Association opened the Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts.^[7][8]

Gitter's other business ventures include starting a Kingston-based regional TV station (WTZA), co-founding the Big Indian Spring Water Company, and running Catskill Corners, including the Emerson in Mt. Tremper, New York. The Emerson is a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World, and Country Store at the Emerson features the world's largest kaleidoscope.^[2][9][10]

Gitter is currently the Managing Partner of Crossroads Ventures, LLC, a venture capital company located in Highmount, New York. Crossroads Ventures is developing the Belleayre Resort at Catskill Park, NY a $394,000,000 destination resort.^[11][12]

Dean Gitter is interested in spirituality and used to teach meditation in Big Indian, New York. His spiritual teacher was Albert Rudolph (Rudi). Gitter was the property manager for Rudi's ashram at Big Indian from 1970 to 1973.^[13]

Dean Gitter has released a new album entitled, Old Folkies Never Die.^[14]

The songs on the album are: Ride Around Little Dogies, Cocaine Bill and Morphine Sue, Anne Boleyn, Days of '49, Love Alone, Another Man Done Gone, Tell 'Ol Bill, Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out, The Pride of Petravore, A medley of short but memorable songs, Barbery Allen, Two Cockney Cautionary Songs, Talkn' Nuthin' Blues, Sir Patrick Spens, The Derelict, The Pig and the Drunk, The Tick Tock Song, Venezuela, Ah, the Apple Trees

In 2013, Gitter moved to the tiny village of Questa, New Mexico, a venerable Hispanic community close to the Colorado border. Shortly thereafter, he discovered that within a few miles of his new home there lived a slew of fine musicians and, even, a fully equipped recording studio. Starting in the spring of 2016 and finishing up for an official May 19, 2017 release, Dean Gitter and his neighbors, christened the Ute Mountain Gang after the nearby extinct volcano, came out with "Carl Sandburg's American Songbag 2.0" a rollicking re-imagining of 21 classic folk songs: A Horse Named Bill, The Colorado Trail, Duncan and Brady, I Ride An Old Paint, Tell Ol' Bill, Go 'Way From My Window, Range Of The Buffalo, When We Gonna Marry?, Virginia Gals, Delia's Gone, Portland County Jail, Lonesome Traveller, No More Booze, Days of '49, Times Are Gettin' Hard, Jesse James, The Frozen Logger, Kentucky Moonshiner, The Titanic, When I Lay This Body Down, Cocaine Bill and Morphine Sue.

References