Throwback Thursday Musical Showcase: Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme Sing a Big Medley on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967

Today we're turning the clock back 58 years to 1967 when Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme sang a medley of songs too many to count on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Gormé was born in the Bronx to Sephardic Jewish parents Nessim Hasdai Gormezano and Fortuna "Fortunee" Gormezano. Both her parents were born in Turkey. The Gormezanos spoke several languages at home, including Ladino (also referred to as Judaeo-Spanish). Due to its close relationship with Castilian Spanish, Gormé was able to speak and sing in Spanish. She was distantly related (by marriage) to Neil Sedaka.

Eydie and her husband and singing partner Steve Lawrence (born Sidney Liebowitz) have been among our favorite singers for many decades. Eydie died in 2013 and Steve in 2024. We miss them both but we still enjoy their duets and solos thanks to YouTube.

Enjoy the flashback!

 

   #Throwback Thursday     #TBT

Throwback Thursday Musical Showcase: Eydie Gorme Sings "If He Walked Into My Live" in 1967

Today we're turning the clock back 57 years to 1967 when Eydie Gorme sang If He Walked Into My Life on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Gormé was born in the Bronx to Sephardic Jewish parents Nessim Hasdai Gormezano and Fortuna "Fortunee" Gormezano. Both her parents were born in Turkey. The Gormezanos spoke several languages at home, including Ladino (also referred to as Judaeo-Spanish). Due to its close relationship with Castilian Spanish, Gormé was able to speak and sing in Spanish. She was distantly related (by marriage) to Neil Sedaka.

Eydie and her husband and singing partner Steve Lawrence have been among our favorite singers for many decades. Eydie died in 2013 and Steve 8 months ago. We miss them both but we still enjoy their duets and solos thanks to YouTube.

Enjoy!

Remembering Steve Lawrence, Nightclub, TV, Recording Star and Actor for More Than 50 Years

Steve Lawrence, who was born Sidney Liebowitz on July 8, 1935 and enjoyed a 50 year performing career, died on March 7 in Los Angeles of complications of Alzheimer's disease.

The son of a cantor at the Brooklyn synagogue Beth Sholom Tomchei Harav, he was best known as a member of the pop vocal duo "Steve and Eydie" with his wife Eydie Gormé, and for his performance as Maury Sline, the manager and friend of the main characters in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. Steve and Eydie first appeared together as regulars on Tonight Starring Steve Allen in 1954 and continued performing as a duo until Gormé's retirement in 2009.

As Robert D. McFadden wrote in The New York Times,

The Liebowitz boys were all musically gifted. By 8, Sidney was singing in a synagogue choir, and by 12 he was composing songs. He dropped out of Thomas Jefferson High School before graduation to sing in bars and nightclubs.

He began calling himself Steve Lawrence, the given names of two nephews. He won “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” at 15 and sang for a week on Godfrey’s morning radio show.

Billed as “Steve and Eydie” in Carnegie Hall concerts, on television and at glitzy hotels in Las Vegas, the remarkably durable couple remained steadfast to their pop style as rock ’n’ roll took America by storm in the 1950s and ’60s.

Long after the millennium, they were still rendering songs like “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” “Just in Time” and “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” for audiences that seemed to grow old with them.Record sales put him in the top ranks of America’s pop singers in the early 1960s, and despite competition from rock groups, his club and concert dates with Ms. Gorme remained enormously popular.

As a tribute to the class act of Steve and Eydie, we're sharing a long medley of music by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Lorenz Hart or Oscar Hammerstein. Songs: The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, Falling In Love With Love, A Wonderful Guy, I Married An Angel, Where Or When, My Heart Stood Still, Blue Moon, Manhattan, Isn't It Romantic, Glad To Be Unhappy, It Might As Well Be Spring, Spring Is Here, It Never Entered My Mind, Bewitched Bothered And Bewildered, My Romance, My Funny Valentine, With A Song In My Heart.

With special thanks to Buzz Stephens for posting this video on YouTube.

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO. 

Throwback Thursday Musical Showcase: Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme Sing a Beatles Medley on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1970

It's another Throwback Thursday, so come with us on a nostalgia trip back to 1970 when Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show to sing a medley of love songs by the Beatles.

Included in the medley are All You Need Is Love, With A Little Help From My Friends, When I'm 64, And I Love Her, Michelle, Ob La Di, and All My Loving.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

  

   #Throwback Thursday     #TBT

Throwback Thursday Musical Showcase: Steve Lawrence Sings "Where Can I Go?" in English and Yiddish

Leo Fuld was a Dutch singer who specialized in Yiddish songs. While in Paris after World War II he visited a little Yiddish night club where he heard a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto sing a song which touched him deeply - Vi ahin zol Ikh geyn?. 

Fuld was so impressed that he asked the composer for a copy and said "I'll make this a world hit!". He kept his promise; upon returning to England he wrote English lyrics and recorded it for Decca under the title Where Can I Go?. 

It was also released in America, and he became a star overnight. He sang it on television in the Milton Berle show, the Perry Como Show and in the Frank Sinatra Show, and it was also recorded by some of America's biggest record stars such as Ray Charles and Steve Lawrence. Among his greatest fans were such stars as Billie Holiday, Al Jolson and Édith Piaf. 

In February 1965 Steve Lawrence sang the song on the Ed Sullivan Show. Let's turn the clock back 58 years to listen to him sing this classic song in English and Yiddish.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

 

   #Throwback Thursday      #TBT

 

Tell me, where can I go? There's no place I can see. Where to go, where to go? Every door is closed for me. To the left, to the right, It's the same in every land. There is nowhere to go And it's me who should know, Won't you please understand? Now I know where to go, Where my folks proudly stand. Let me go, let me go To that precious promised land. No more left no more right. Lift your head and see the light. I am proud, can't you see, For at last I am free: No more wandering for me.   

 

Vi ahin zol ikh geyn? Ver kon entfern mir? Vi ahin zol ikh geyn? Az farshlosn z'yede tir S'iz di velt groys genug Nor far mir iz eng un kleyn Vi a blik kh'muz tsurik S'iz tsushtert yede brik Vi ahin zol ikh geyn? Dort ahin vel aich gein.

 

 

 

Throwback Thursday Musical Special - Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme Sing in Japan

Back in March 1988, Steve Lawrence (Steve Liebowitz) and Eydie Gorme (Edith Gormezano) performed live on stage in Tokyo. Their concert included 25 songs, including That's What Friends Are For, composed by Burt Bacharach with lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager.

Steve and Eydie were always our favorite singers, and we were saddened in 2013 to hear that Eydie died at the age of 84. Eydie's parents were Sephardic Jews from Sicily and Turkey, and she was a first cousin to singer Neil Sedaka.

Steve continued to perform until last year, when he revealed that he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

This rendition of That's What Friends Are For is a classic example of their song stylings.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.




#Throwback Thursday    #TBT

Remembering the Songs and Humor of Eydie Gorme

On Sunday we noted with sadness the passing of Eydie Gorme, half of the always happy, always ebullient singing team of Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. Through the decades we enjoyed their song stylings, their comedy skits, and their serving as a model of a happy and proud Jewish couple committed to each other for life.

JTA's report included a quote from Steve Allen, host of the show that became The Tonight Show, which regularly featured the duo, on what made them so successful.

“What has been the nature of their success?” Allen said in a 1996 Times story. “First, the fact that they are a couple has something to do with it.

Secondly, they are damned good singers. And thirdly – this has both hurt and helped them – they concentrated for the most part on good music. This lost them the youthful audience, who prefer crap to Cole Porter’s music. But it endeared them to people with sophisticated taste.”

Gorme was born August 16, 1928, in the Bronx, New York, to Sephardic Jewish immigrants. Her father was a tailor from Sicily and her mother was from Turkey. Before her singing career took off, Gorme worked as a Spanish-language interpreter.

We never met Steve and Eydie in person, but they always seemed part of the family, and we followed their appearances on stage, on TV, and in records.

There are so many video clips of Eydie singing by herself and with Steve that we could share, but we settled on the following three:

1. Black and white newsreel footage of their wedding, with Steve in a black hat under the chuppah, and Steve feeding wedding cake to Eydie and to comedian Joe E. Lewis.

2. An audio clip from one of our favorite Steve and Eydie productions, a made-for-TV special called What it Was, Was Love by Gordon Jenkins, a story of a couple who meet, fall in love, marry and grow old together, told entirely in song.

3. An audio recording of Steve and Eydie singing Bashana Ha'ba'ah in Hebrew and English (lyrics and translation below the video), as we look forward to the start of another Jewish New Year.

Enjoy!

(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)








HEBREW LYRICS TRANSLITERATED:
Bashana haba'ah neshev al hamirpeset
Venispor tziporim nodedot
Yeladim bechufsha yesachaku tofeset
Bein habayit ulvein hasadot

Od tireh od tireh
Kama tov yiheyeh
Bashana bashana haba'ah

Anavim adumim yavshilu ad ha'erev
Veyugshu tzonenim lashulchan
Veruchot redumim yisu el eim haderech
Itonim yeshanim ve'anan

Od tireh od tireh
Kama tov yiheyeh
Bashana bashana haba'ah 

TRANSLATION:
Next year we will sit on the porch
And count all the wandering birds
Children on vacation will play catch
Between the house and the fields

You will see how good it will be
Next year

Red grapes will ripen by evening
And be served cold to the table
Pleasant breezes will blow on to the roads
Old newspapers and clouds
 
ENGLISH LYRICS:
Seasons come, seasons go
but people never seem to know
how long it will rain, or it will shine
Let them ask what will be,
it doesn't mean a thing to me,
I know what will be when you're mine.