Jorma Kaukonen Finds Somebody To Love

The former Jefferson Airplane guitarist and Hot Tuna lead man comes home to his mother’s faith at his Fur Peace Ranch in Ohio

By Wayne Robins for Tablet Magazine

I. ‘Shalom, Brother’

At Fur Peace Ranch, hidden away on an unpaved road in the Appalachian foothills of southeastern Ohio, one expects to hear the moo of cows, the rustling of corn. But Fur Peace doesn’t raise dairy cattle or crops. Its primary product is guitar players, mentored during numerous weekend retreats each year by owner Jorma Kaukonen. One of the most celebrated and influential rock guitar players of the last 50 years, Kaukonen was a founding member of Jefferson Airplane, the band whose very name represents the base camp of the 1960s counter-culture in all its striations: lysergic visions, political upheavals, feedback-fueled rock ’n’ roll, the San Francisco-born soundtrack to collective hallucinations, urban revolution, and pastoral pleasures.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

African-American Opera Singer Revives The Songs Of The Shtetl

By Kimberly Winston for The Jewish Daily Forward

Berkley, Calif. - Three years ago, when Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell took the stage at a Jewish vaudeville celebration and said he was going to sing in Yiddish, people laughed.

As a 6-foot-plus African-American with one golden earring, he just didn’t look like the typical Jew fluent in the language of the pre-World War II shtetl.

Then he opened his mouth. Out came a rich bass voice in a longing lament to the isolated villages and tiny homes left behind in places like Poland and Russia.

Think “Fiddler on the Roof”‘s “Anatevka” sung by a guy who looks more like Chris Rock than Zero Mostel.

No one is laughing now. Russell performs Yiddish songs from New York to Florida, from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, to full houses and wide acclaim. On Sept. 6, he will sing at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

Highway 61 Revisited: 50 years later

Harvey Brooks for The Times of Israel   

It was July 28, 1965. I was playing a gig at the Sniffin Court Inn on East 36th Street in Manhattan. During a break, I went next door to eat at the Burger Heaven, when I got a phone call from Al Kooper.

I’m playing on this album with Bob Dylan and they need a bass player – are you doing anything?

That phone call would change my life.

The next day — 50 years ago — I drove from Queens to Manhattan. After parking my car in a lot on 54th Street, I was soon in an elevator on the way to play for Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited album at Columbia Studio A at 777 Seventh Avenue. I opened the door to the control room, took a deep breath and entered.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

Carmen at Masada

In the heart of the Judean Desert, at the foot of Masada, one of the most familiar and beloved operas of all times is coming to life - Carmen, by French composer Georges Bizet.

Watch the fascinating story of how the opera came to be performed at Masada.

The Amy Winehouse Tracks No One Will Ever Hear

By Avishay Artsy for Jewniverse
The new documentary Amy offers a heartbreaking look at the rise and fall of an extraordinarily gifted young singer. Amy Winehouse was a “Jewish girl from North London” (as she put it) who wanted nothing to do with fame. But life spiraled out of control as she battled drug addiction, eating disorders, paparazzi, a greedy father and boyfriend, and her own self-sabotage. She died in 2011 at the tragically young age of 27 from alcohol poisoning.

She only released two albums (the jazz-inspired Frank and the R&B-heavy Back to Black, which won five Grammys), and there was one posthumous outtakes collection, Lioness: Hidden Treasures. But fans will probably never get to hear a third studio album, because her label boss destroyed the demos.

Continue reading.

Follow us on