Bach's 21st cantata, Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21 ("I had much grief"), with Jonathan Sternberg conducting the tenor Hugues Cuénod and other soloists, chorus and orchestra.

It continued to issue folk music with newly signed artists Joan Baez, Hedy West, the Rooftop Singers, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ian and Sylvia, and Mimi and Richard Fariña.

Many of the latter came from the United Kingdom's Pye Records label, featuring performances by the Halle Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli.

The multiplicity of popular in-house classical music series released by the Solomons on Vanguard and Bach Guild between 1950 and 1966 include, in addition to 22 Bach cantatas, the virtuoso trumpet, virtuoso flute and virtuoso oboe, along with German University Songs with Erich Kunz, songs of the Auvergne, Viennese dances with Willi Boskovsky, traditional songs by Roland Hayes, Vivaldi's Four Seasons and other concertos from I Solisti di Zagreb, music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, numerous Haydn symphonies performed by the Esterhazy Orchestra, a double LP of Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice sung in Italian with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra led by Charles Mackerras, and an influential Mahler cycle with the Utah Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maurice Abravanel.

By the early 1970s, with acts such as Joan Baez and Ian & Sylvia leaving for other labels, and disappointing sales for the "Everyman" budget classical series, Vanguard's stature in the music industry was diminished.

An unexpected novelty hit on Vanguard, "Shaving Cream" by Benny Bell, led the company to release albums of humorous music inspired by Dr. Demento.

A few disco albums by acts such as Players Association, Alphone Mouzon's "Poussez",[8] and Marcus Barone's "The Ring/Savage Lover" [9] were released on Vanguard with both domestic and worldwide chart impact.

Welk Music Group revitalized the label, reissuing much of its extensive folk and popular music back catalogue (a good deal of which had been out of print for several years) on CD, as well as signing a number of new artists (such as Matt Nathanson, Mindy Smith, Greg Laswell, and Trevor Hall), in addition to established musicians such as Merle Haggard, John Fogerty, Chris Isaak, Robert Cray, Shawn Mullins, and Linda Ronstadt.

After Seymour Solomon's death, Vanguard Classics was sold to Artemis Records, which reactivated the company with new releases by Leon Fleisher and Gil Shaham.