In her late teens, she lived in Mexico City, where she acquired a love of folk music and the blues, learned Spanish, and developed her talents as a singer and guitar player.
[3] The cover sleeves were designed by Maurice Sendak,[4] and the albums helped establish Elektra as a source of folk and world music and allowed Holzman to expand into new business ventures.
[5][6] Holzman later said:"I met Cynthia Gooding and her husband at one of those folk parties in Greenwich Village which I sometimes describe as one of those places where there were a lot of wing chairs, candles, bullfight posters, and cheap wine.
[4] In 1957, material from two of the 10-inch LPs was combined into a single 12-inch album, Cynthia Gooding Sings Spanish, Mexican and Turkish Folk Songs.
[4] She also released two more LPs that year, Cynthia Gooding Sings of Faithful Lovers..., and A Young Man and A Maid: Love Songs of Many Lands, which included several duets with Theodore Bikel.
She made many recordings around Greenwich Village and elsewhere, as research and material for her shows, and in early 1962 conducted the first radio interview with Bob Dylan, before his first album was released.