Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday January 25, 2022: London, Longing for Home

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesday afternoons from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

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

This episode of Stranger Songs was prerecorded at home and can already be streamed on-demand by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/54959.html

Theme: London, Longing for Home – songs about the city of London, that are set in London, or that reference London in some way.

Mike Regenstreif & Tom Paxton (2009)

Tom Paxton- Leaving London
The Compleat Tom Paxton (Even Compleater) (Rhino Handmade)

Ian & Sylvia- Handsome Molly
Ian & Sylvia (Vanguard)
Peggy Seeger- London Bridge
Love Call Me Home (Appleseed)
Derroll Adams- Apprenticed in London
Feelin’ Fine (The Village Thing)
Bob Bossin- London
The Roses on Annie’s Table (Nick)
Stringband- Le prisonnier de Londres
The Indispensable 1972-2002 (Nick)

Bonnie Dobson- JB’s Song
Take Me for a Walk in the Morning Dew (Hornbeam)
Mary Hopkin- Streets of London
Earth Song/Ocean Song (Apple)

Jelly Roll Morton- London Blues
An Introduction to Jelly Roll Morton (Fuel 2000)

Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Mike Regenstreif & Chaim Tannenbaum (1976) photo: Felicity Fanjoy

Kate & Anna McGarrigle- Tell My Sister
Tell My Sister: Kate & Anna McGarrigle (Nonesuch)
Chaim Tannenbaum- London, Longing for Home
Chaim Tannenbaum (StorySound)

James Keelaghan- Sweet Thames Flow Softly
A Few Simple Verses (Jericho Beach Music)
Emily Barker & Lukas Drinkwater- London Still
Room 822 (Everyone Sang)
Gary P. Nunn with Robert Earl Keen & Lyle Lovett- London Homesick Blues
Friends for Life, Volume One (Campfire)

Willie Nelson- A Foggy Day
My Way (Legacy)
Sam Cooke- London By Night
Cooke’s Tour (RCA)
Suzy Bogguss- Piccadilly Circus
Swing (Compadre)
Tom Northcott- Sunny Goodge Street
Sunny Goodge Street: The Warner Bros. Recordings (Wounded Bird)

Sneezy Waters & His Very Fine Band- Sultans of Swing
Sneezy Waters Live (Sneezy Waters)
Warren Zevon- Werewolves of London
A Quiet Normal Life: The Best of Warren Zevon (Elektra)
The Clash- London Calling
London Calling (Epic)

Roger Miller- England Swings
Hits (Drive Entertainment)

Next week: Songs of W.C. Handy

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Hilda Bronstein -- Hilda Bronstein Sings Yiddish Songs with Chutzpah!

This review is from the September 19, 2011 edition of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.

HILDA BRONSTEIN

Hilda Bronstein Sings Yiddish Songs with Chutzpah!

Arc Music

chiribim.com

When I first opened this CD, I assumed that the word chutzpah was being used to describe British singer Hilda Bronstein’s approach to the singing of Yiddish songs. While I wouldn’t say there’s a lack of chutzpah in her singing, Chutzpah is actually the name of the klezmer band she fronts.

The album is a collection of 17 Yiddish-language songs – many of them familiar – drawn from various sources including classic Yiddish films and theatrical musicals, settings of Yiddish poems and several Holocaust-era songs. Bronstein sings the quieter, sombre songs with all due respect and the more celebratory, upbeat songs with much verve.

Chutzpah, which includes Israeli accordionist Yair Schleider, and violinist Meg Hamilton, also noted for her work in the She’koyokh Klezmer Ensemble, provide Bronstein with arrangements that move from swinging to contemplative.

Among the highlights are such toe-tappers as “Abi Gezunt,” made famous by Molly Picon in the 1938 film Mamele, “Di Grine Kuzine,” an ultimately bitter song about Jewish immigration to America in the early part of the 20th century, and “Farbay di Teg,” a Yiddish version of a Russian folksong whose English version (adapted by Gene Raskin), “Those Were the Days” was a hit in the 1960s by Mary Hopkin.

Some of the CD’s most poignant moments come in songs like “Makh Tsu Di Eygelekh,” a lullaby composed in the Lodz Ghetto, and “Slutsk,” a Yiddish theatre song recalling a shtetl in Belarus.

--Mike Regenstreif