Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
What started out as a mutual affinity for kitschy Jewish album covers–think Neil Diamond baring his chest hair on the cover of Hot August Night or Barbra Streisand in hot pants on the cover of Streisand Superman–soon became a quest for identity, history, and culture between the grooves of LPs.
Together, Roger Bennett and Josh Kun embarked on a thrilling journey, scouring the world to collect thousands of vinyl LPs from attics, garage sales, and dusty archives. Pieced together, these scratched, once-loved and now-forgotten audio gems tell a vibrant tale: the story of Jews in America. And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl spans the history of Jewish recorded music from the 1940s to the 1980s, weaving an account that begins with sacred songs and ends with the holy trinity of Neil, Barbra, and Barry. The LPs found here are also a love letter to forgotten moments in Jewish American pop history, celebrating well-dressed cantors singing Christmas tunes, Long Island suburbanites dancing the mambo, and Chassidic prog-rockers.
The music, much of which is no longer available in any format, is brought to life through commentary from writers Aimee Bender, Etgar Keret, Michael Wex, and Shalom Auslander; performers Sandra Bernhard and Motown legend Lamont Dozier; music critics Oliver Wang and Anne Powers; and TV pioneer Norman Lear. A gateway to a forgotten kingdom of sound, the good, the bad, and the ugly of Jewish vinyl gives this aspect of Jewish culture the attention it so richly deserves.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
great resource;great gift
Customer Rating:
This book can be a nostalgic gift to an older person who appreciates Jewish music; it can be a unique coffee table book for anyone who enjoys beautiful visuals and interesting text, and it was so different and uplifting that I ended up buying one for myself just because I liked knowing it was a timeless resource for my book shelf.
Interesting slant on Afro Cuban Jewish Music
Customer Rating:
I heard the authors on NPR, and liked the book very much when I got it. I bought it for a present. He liked it too.
Nostalgia
Customer Rating:
It's a fun book to go through and remember all the music from the past 50 or so years. It's focus is on what Jews listened to not just Jewish music. Fun!
Perfect gift for your son, the Yiddish speaking songwriter
Customer Rating:
OK, my mom is long gone, but my sweetie got me this book for Hanukah and I know she really loves me. I own a few of the albums shown here. One of them caused me to break my mother's fancy shmancy marble coffee table in two when I was a kid, the music made me dance so hard. Ah, the memories. If you know any (living) Yiddish speaking songwriters (there have to be more than five or ten besides me, I'm certain), this would make a perfect gift. Beyond that, this is the kind of book that would appeal to record collectors, I'm guessing.
Warning though: most of these albums are best just for cover gazing. For instance one of the titles here, Bagels and Bongos, has some of the most awful musicianship you could possibly hear (the drummer should have been shot before the recording session to save everyone some ear pain). But there are surprises. For instance, Mickey Katz is often reviled by Yiddish purists, but man those musicians on his albums knew how to play. By the way, Mickey Katz wasn't the one who caused me to break my mom's coffee table. That will stay a family secret.
The perfect gift for at least one of those crazy nights.
Customer Rating:
I laughed. I cried. I frantically looked through my own large record collection to find the very small number of the albums discussed within the book. Even if you have never heard of more than a tiny fraction of the musical artists discussed herein, you will enjoy the discussion of how this music/art fit within the culture. And you will dig it, even if you are not Jewish. Even more so if you are. Nah...it doesn't matter-all but Osama Bin Laden will love this book.
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