In a 1989 interview with James Rozzi, Weinstock recalled how he came to sign the enigmatic giant. "Miles had vanished after he did those Capitol sides with the nonet [1949]; nobody knew where he was. Somebody had said that he may be at home in East St. Louis, so while I was in Chicago on business, I tracked him down. His father was a dentist, so I knew that his number would be in the phone book. I called information, got the number, called, and Miles answered ... I said that I was interested in doing a series of recordings, and that I wanted to sign him to a contract. He said alright, just get him to New York and we'd talk about it then."

Weinstock also mentioned three of the bigger fish who got away. Harry Belafonte offered him some early calypso sides that the producer turned down only to see Belafonte become "the hottest vocalist in America"; Jimmy Smith went on to success at Blue Note after Weinstock told him "Man, I can't put that out. That's not what I'm doing" ("After that I signed the next best six or eight jazz organists I could find"); and — what he calls his biggest blunder, and you don't get much bigger — Bob Dylan, whom Weinstock met around the time he was starting up the Folklore label.

"I asked [this one dealer at the Folklore Center on Bleecker Street] if Dylan had ever recorded (which he hadn't), and was told not to bother recording him, just listen to Woody Guthrie instead."

Weinstock, who died of complications from diabetes, is survived by his companion, Roberta Ross; three sons; and three grandchildren.