My Yiddishe, American, Spanish Mama

My Yiddishe Mama was the legendary Sophie Tucker's signature song. One she started to rock in 1925 after the death of her own mother. She originally released it in English with a Yiddish version as the B-side and it became a smash hit, despite the heaviness of its lyrics:

"She would have leaped into the fire
and water for her children.
Not cherishing her is certainly the greatest sin."

Every Jewish stereotype of the Jewish mother-child stereotype succinctly captured in just three lines. Brilliant craftsmanship that perhaps has contributed to its longevity. It has been recorded by everyone from Itzhak Perlman to the Barry Sisters... and here are four of our favorites. The original and arguably still the best, by Sophie Tucker. Yossele Rosenblatt, the greatest cantor of his generation lending his signature sobbing sound to the Yiddish. Tom Jones leading Australian singing sensation John Farnham in a duet. Jones was want to introduce the song in concert by saying, "This is a song I learned, from my father, when I was a boy." And then romantic balladeer, the late, great Spaniard Nino Bravo takes it to a new level with his version, My Querida Mama, My Beloved Mama. If you have a favorite, we would love to hear about it.

Sophie Tucker


Yossele Rosenblatt


Tom Jones and John Farnham


Nino Bravo

Little Eva Mystery

Many of you will no doubt remember Little Eva, who made it big with the smash sensation, The Locomotiion, after landing the prime job as Carole King's baby sitter. But does anyone know why this song about a gorilla was named Magilla -- as in, "the whole Magilla..."?

Yodelling Ahroni

This website has sung Hanna Ahroni's praises before... and so we were delighted to receive this track from Lorne in New York, Hannah's Hora. Part haimishe, part yodel, where the Semitic meets the Alpine. Listen and be enthralled...

And you shall know us, by the trail of our radio clips...

Happy New Year to everyone, and a massive thanks to all those who have been in touch to discuss the albums and artists featured in our book, as well as those of you who have kept sending your vinyl finds our way.

Our project has garnered some gorgeous coverage over the past few weeks. In the wake of our All Things Considered feature, the amazing Michael Raphael did this piece on the (deeply lamented) Weekend America focusing on the magical and evolving world of cantorial sound.

Very Short List gave us a great hit -- as well as placed the great Sol Zim on their banner, which is where he surely belongs.

The iconic Irving Fields took news of our project to the salacious territory of New York Post's Page Six.

And WNYC's Soundcheck did a great piece here. The kicker to this feature was that Soundcheck invited Conrad Keely of the band whose name inspired us, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of our Dead on the show the next week for an interview and live performance and Joel Meyer, the show's brilliant producer, sent us the above snap, which kind of brings the whole project together in a rather surreal way. Conrad. You rock.

Trail of Our Vinyl rocks New York City...

New York Times preview here

But for our review... read on:
On December 11th, The Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation rocked New York with the sounds that once reverberated everywhere across the city. Many of the artists we have met over the past eight years took the stage one more time at Joe's Pub, playing for a sold out crowd who packed the club even as the heavens opened outside. By the line to get in, you would have thought the Beatles had reformed. Sodden masses clad in North Face, braving the elements to hear Irving Fields, El Avram, Gershon Kingsley, and Sol Zim hit it hard. The gig itself was an eighty-five minute roller coaster through time. 93-year old Irving Fields kicking things off with an animated version of Miami Beach Rhumba segueing into his Hava Nagila, replete with signature finger pyrotechnics which bought the audience to their feet. We could have closed the show right there. Irving felt the love and told the audience that they "could not understand how fulfilling it was to hear the applause of a crowd at his age."
Irving had set the bar high, but Avram Grobard, the mighty El Avram, had no fear, unleashing his ridiculously addictive "El Avram's Theme" on the audience who surely left the show with the chorus rebounding through their minds. A remarkable performance from a master of stagecraft.
Moog pioneer Gershon Kingsley took the audience on a journey into the Hebraic origins of his anthem, "Popcorn" leaving the stage to a flute driven tribute laid down by band leader, Paul Shapiro who was a giant throughout.
The show was closed by Sol Zim, the last in a royal lineage of five generations of Cantors whose career was inextricably changed when he attended a KISS concert at Madison Square Garden in the seventies. Sol toyed with the audience with his thumping rendition of Am Yisrael Chai, gyrating his crotch through the chorus, dragging the audience through the chorus, and yes, knickers were thrown...
The gig was a blast. For the audience, and most importantly, for the performers who rocked so hard, killing in their own way, and challenging the audience to consider both their individual pasts and their sense of collective history. Thanks also to Jessi Klein, Jody Rosen, and Kandia Crazy Horse, who toasted Streisand/Diamond duets, Jewface sheet music, and The Temptations doing Fiddler in that order... Nextbook and Alana Newhouse for hosting the afterparty, and Jackie Hoffman who channeled the spirits of Belle Barth and Ruth Wallis in inimitable fashion. We are planning a much bigger show in New York in Summer '09. But next up, a west coast gig... San Francisco, February 5th....

Leonard Nimoy Names That Tune

Last week was a busy, bi-coastal one for us here at Trail of Our Vinyl with two book launch parties on opposite sides of the country. We started West where our friends at the Santa Monica Museum of Art were kind enough to let us stage an amazing night of music and book- signing right in the middle of an exhibition by Martin Kersels. We knew that the one and only Leonard Nimoy was a Jewish music buff-- turns out Spock is also a veteran of Yiddish theater and Fiddler on the Roof-- so we decided to test his skills live on stage with a round of Name That Tune featuring artists and songs from the book.

We started with Irving Fields' slow-boiled bongo-peppered take on the Second Avenue chestnut "Belz Mein Shtetele Belz" and then moved to Terry Gibbs' take on "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" (featuring klezmer legend Sam Musiker on clarinet and Alice Coltrane on piano). Nimoy knew both tunes right away but hadn't heard these versions before, which started a good conversation about authenticity and tradition and about just how flexible musical Jewishness has been, which only intensified when he heard "Bei Mir" done by 30s "vout" jazzers Slim and Slam and a surprisingly cantorial sounding Judy Garland. Nimoy could easily differentiate between the voices of Yossele Rosenblatt, Richard Tucker, and Pierre Pinchik, and had no problem with Aaron Lebedeff's 40s version of "Roumania, Roumania," even if he scoffed at Eartha Kitt's rendering of it. There were tall tales of down-and-out cantors on his childhood streets of Boston ("Tabatchnik is Coming! Tabatchnik is Coming!") and fond memories of singing the staples of the Yiddish stage. Yet his Fiddler experience had him in disbelief when he heard The Temptations doing "If I Were A Rich Man" and he explained his resistance to the songs of Mickey Katz and Leo Fuchs, which he thought-- at one time-- were poor substitutes for the glory days of pre-WWII Yiddish music (we did our best to convince him otherwise).

The night's best moments came when Leo Fuld's "Where Can I Go?" got Nimoy going on the power of Jewish song as a diaspora tool-- longings for home, longings for a place to go-- and when Theodore Bikel's version of "Tumbalalaika" inspired him to lead the audience in a warm, group sing-a-long that somehow managed to feel as old-school as it was brand new.

The Playlist:

"Belz"- The Irving Fields Trio
"Belz Mein Shtetele Belz"- Seymour Rechzeit "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"- Terry Gibbs Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"- Judy Garland Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"- Slim and Slam "Roumania, Roumania"- Aaron Lebedeff ""Roumania, Roumania"- Eartha Kitt "Tikanto Shabbos"- Yossele Rosenblatt "Sim Shalom"- Richard Tucker "Rozo D'Shabbos"- Pierre Pinchik "Fiddler on the Roof Medley"- The Temptations "Where Can I Go?"- Leo Fuld "Bashana Ha'Bah"- Jon Yune "Yiddishe Mambo"- Mickey Katz
"Tumbalalaika"- Theodore Bikel

Can anyone crack the mystery that is... Benji?

This album was sent to us by Ollie from Los Angeles. We appreciate its design simplicity and the fact that the artist clearyly foresaw the Sleeveface fad. But who is Benji? His music is pop with a Mediterranean inflexion. But that is all we have to go on. If anyone can shed any light on Benji (a dead ringer for Donald Sutherland if ever there was one) and his career or even connect us to the man himself, we would love to hear from you.