Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Saturday August 18, 2018

Saturday Morning is an eclectic roots-oriented program on CKCU in Ottawa heard live on Saturday mornings from 7 until 10 am (Eastern time) and then available for on-demand streaming. I am one of the four rotating hosts of Saturday Morning and base my programming on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches format I developed at CKUT in Montreal.

CKCU can be heard at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and http://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web.

This episode of Saturday Morning can be streamed on-demand at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/128/38929.html

Extended feature: Paul Simon.

Dave Fry- Giant

Troubadour (Dave Fry)

In memory of Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin- A Change is Gonna Come

I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (Rhino)

Aretha Franklin- Respect

I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (Rhino)

El Coyote- Lighten Up Diane

El Coyote (El Coyote)

Tom Russell- Alkali

Old Songs Yet to Sing (Frontera)

Eliza Gilkyson- Solitary Singer

Secularia (Red House)

Jimmy LaFave- Minstrel Boy Howling at the Moon

Peace Town (Music Road)

David Kaufman- The Fire Next Time (1970)

Second Promise (Sun-Street)

Kate McGarrigle- Annie

Tell My Sister (Nonesuch)

Chaim Tannenbaum- (Talk to Me of) Mendocino

Chaim Tannenbaum (StorySound)

Bob Dylan- Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right

Live 1962-1966: Rare Performances from the Copyright Collections (Columbia/Legacy)

Orit Shimoni- Hallelujah

Lost and Found on the Road to Nowhere (Orit Shimoni)

Jory Nash- Sister Station

Wilderness Years (Thin Man Records)

David Olney- Always the Stranger

This Side or the Other (Black Hen)

Zoe Speaks- Wings of a Dove

Wings (Redbird)

Joe Jencks- Shuttle & Loom

The Forgotten: Recovered Treasures from the Pen of Si Kahn (Turtle Bear Music)

Grit Laskin- Sewing Machines

Unabashedly Folk (Borealis)

Mustard's Retreat- I’m Gonna Walk It with You

Make Your Own Luck (Yellow Room)

Lucy Wainwright Roche & Suzzy Roche- Bleecker Street

Mud & Apples (Lucy Wainwright Roche & Suzzy Roche)

Eva Cassidy- Kathy’s Song

Time After Time (Blix Street)

Dawn Tyler Watson & Paul Deslauriers- Homeward Bound

En Duo (Justin Time)

Simon & Garfunkel- The Sound of Silence

Sounds of Silence (Columbia)

Caroline Doctorow- The Dangling Conversation

Dreaming in Vinyl (Narrow Lane)

Kate Campbell- America

The K.O.A. Tapes (Vol.1) (Large River Music)

Simon & Garfunkel- The Boxer

Bridge Over Troubled Water (Columbia)

Johnny Cash- Bridge Over Troubled Water

American IV: The Man Comes Around (American)

The Perusasions- Slip Sliding Away

No Frills (Rounder)

The Wailin Jennys- Loves Me Like a Rock

Fifteen (True North)

Paul Simon- Take Me to the Mardi Gras

There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (Warner Bros.)

Carrie Elkin- American Tune

The Penny Collector (Carrie Elkin) 

Melody Walker & Jacob Groopman- Graceland

We Made It Home (Maker/Mender Records)

John Stewart & Darwin's Army- Boy in the Bubble

John Stewart & Darwin’s Army (Appleseed)

Ladysmith Black Mambazo- Homeless

Live at the Royal Albert Hall (Shanachie)

Paul Simon- Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes

Graceland (Warner Bros.)

Sophie Milman- Shpatsir In Vald (A Walk in the Forest)

Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II (Six Degrees)

Theodore Bikel- Partizaner-March (March of the Partisans)

While I’m Here (Red House)

Leonard Cohen- The Partisan

Songs from a Room (Columbia/Legacy)

Psoy Korolenko & Isaac Rosenberg- A Shturemvint (A Storm Wind)

Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II (Six Degrees)

Vince Halfhide- Cobalt Miner’s Daughter

Vince Halfhide (Vince Halfhide)

Vince Halfhide- Sonny Boy Said

Vince Halfhide (Vince Halfhide)

Kaia Kater- Harlem’s Little Blackbird

Nine Pin (Kaia Kater)

Reggie Harris- Harlem Renaissance

Ready to Go (Reggie Harris Music)

Dakota Dave Hull- Movin’ Day

This Earthly Life (Arabica)

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on September 15.

Find me on Twitter. @MikeRegenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Various artists -- Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations

Various Artists
Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations
Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation
Idelsohnsociety.com

(This review is from the September 27, 2010 issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.)

This fascinating compilation was conceived when members of the Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation – a group named for Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, the composer of “Hava Negila” – chanced upon a 1958 recording by Johnny Mathis, the African American singer mostly known for his romantic, smooth pop songs, of “Kol Nidre,” the prayer traditionally sung on Erev Yom Kippur.

Singing in the original Aramaic, Mathis, sounds like a veteran cantor on this powerfully stirring interpretation which provides the finale for Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations, an album that explores Jewish music, or music composed by Jews in non-Jewish styles or even by gentiles in Jewish styles (or with Jewish cultural references), and performed by African American artists between the 1930s and 1960s.

That there would be a history of musical interaction between Jews and African Americans is hardly surprising. There are examples that stretch across the entire history of 20th century popular, jazz and folk music.

A few of the 15 tracks included on the CD are well known, some are surprising.

Perhaps the most surprising is the version of “My Yiddishe Momme” by the great jazz singer Billie Holiday that opens the album. On this private recording made at the home of a friend in 1956, and accompanied just by pianist, Holiday strips the song of its usual nostalgic sentimentality instead offering it as a poignant, plaintive lament.

One of the most astounding tracks is Aretha Franklin’s 1966 recording of “Swanee,” a song written by Jewish songwriters George Gershwin and Irving Caeser, and made famous by Al Jolson who sang it in blackface, a performance style abandoned many decades ago in recognition of its inherent racism. Franklin – who was yet to record the soul classics that made her a huge star – turns in a soaring, powerful performance that makes Jolson’s version seem completely irrelevant.

Several numbers are guaranteed to put a smile on your face and a tap in your toes. Johnny Hartman’s 1966 version of “That Old Black Magic,” by Jewish composer Harold Arlen, incorporates verses from “Matilda,” the calypso song, and then, more relevantly for this compilation, the Yiddish song “Di Grine Kuzine.” There’s a 1939 version of “Utt Da Zay,” performed by Cab Calloway that Jewish songwriters Irving Mills (Calloway’s manager) and Buck Ram adapted from the traditional Yiddish folksong about a tailor. Calloway, one of the swing era’s great wits, sings the opening verses almost with reverence interspersing them with some scatting that almost sounds like a Chasidic nigun. Soon, though, the band is in full swing mode and his scats let us know that it’s all in fun. And, Slim Gaillard’s 1945 recording of “Dunkin’ Bagel,” is a musical hipster’s guide to such Jewish foods as bagels, matzo balls, gefilte fish, pickled herring, etc.

Fiddler on the Roof provides material for two tracks including a spiritual-sounding instrumental version of “Sabbath Prayer,” recorded in 1964 by jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. Later in the CD, the Temptations do a 10-minute, Las Vegas-style medley drawing on many of the musical’s hits.

A most interesting combination of composer, lyricist and performer comes in African American singer Jimmy Scott’s 1969 version of “Exodus.” The music was composed in 1960 as the theme for Exodus, the film based on Leon Uris’ novel about the founding of the State of Israel. The lyrics Scott sings, easily interpreted as being from the perspective of a Jew in his homeland, were written later by American pop singer and religious Christian Pat Boone. Another fascinating combination of song, creators and performer is Lena Horne’s 1963 recording of “Now,” a civil rights song written by Jewish songwriters Adolph Green, Betty Comden and Jule Styne to the melody of “Hava Nagila.”

In a similar theme, “Where Can I Go,” translated by Leo Fuld from a Yiddish song that longs for a Jewish homeland, also became a civil rights anthem in its English-language version. It’s included here with Marlena Shaw’s 1969 recording.

Other highlights include “Sholem,” a wild version of “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem,” recorded in 1959 by Eartha Kitt; the Yiddish love song “Ich Hob Dich Tzufil Lieba,” performed by Alberta Hunter, a 1920s classic blues singer, on a 1982 album at age 87; a 1963 version of the Hebrew folksong, “Eretz Zavat Chalav,” by the great Nina Simone; and collaboration of Jewish singer Libby Holman and African American folk and blues legend Josh White on a 1942 recording of “Baby, Baby,” a variant of the traditional “See See Rider.”

These tracks just begin to illustrate the possibilities inherent in a musical history of black-Jewish relations. Let’s hope this is just the first in a series of volumes.

--Mike Regenstreif