Selma Avenue is a little street just off Hollywood Boulevard where a great independent publishing house and recording studio used to be. It was known as Criterion Music Corporation, and its doors opened in 1950 with Mickey Goldsen at the helm. For over 60 years the torch of discovering and finding great talent burned bright under the guidance of both Mickey and his son Bo Goldsen, as so many troubadours walked through the doors of that Selma Avenue recording studio. During the last five years that the company was in business, it was forced to sell the building. It was immediately bulldozed and the area re-purposed. However, the sacred ground that was the foundation of that special place, just like the songs, will always remain. Criterion and its Selma Avenue recording studio was a house of dreams for many artists, including members of Troubadour 77, and its legacy will live forever in the songs that were carved there.
