Unsung Jewish Composers and Lyricists of the Great American Songbook - Ervin Drake and "It Was a Very Good Year"

It's well known that many of the songs that comprise the collection known as The Great American Song Book were written by Jewish composers and lyricists, mostly in the decades between 1930 and 1965, but also going back to the turn of the 20th century.

 

The most prolific of these writers are responsible for the great majority of songs. Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin lead the long list of songwriters and their songs number in the hundreds.

But there are many others that were written by composers and lyricists that you very likely never heard of. These songwriters wrote lots of pop songs to stand alone and as parts of Broadway and Off-Broadway shows and Hollywood movies. Most of the songs are long forgotten, but a few of them have become popular standards, and are sung as much today as in the years they were written.

In this series, which will run in Jewish Humor Central on a weekly basis, we will focus on one songwriter at a time, and feature a video performance of their most popular song.

Today we're featuring Ervin Drake, who was born in New York City as Ervin Maurice Druckman. He attended Townsend Harris High School and the City College of New York. One of his best known songs is I Believe which was made popular by Frankie Laine.

He wrote the words and music for It Was a Very Good Year in 1961, when a publisher friend told him that Bob Shane of the Kingston Trio would be in the publisher's office the next morning, and the publisher asked Drake to write a song for Shane to sing solo. 

 

In 1965, Frank Sinatra heard the song on his car radio as he was driving home in the desert and immediately pulled over in the middle of the night to a gas station and pay phone. Sinatra called Gordon Jenkins and told him he wanted him to make an arrangement with plenty of strings and maybe an interesting instrument like the oboe could be used as well. 

When he arrived back in L.A. he recorded it for his career comeback album September of My Years. The Sinatra recording was a Top 30 single on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1966, and made No.1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. 

 

Here's the rare studio recording of Sinatra singing Jenkins' arrangement of It Was a Very Good Year. 

 

Enjoy!

 

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A Joke to Start the Week - "Can of Peaches"

It's another Monday and time for another Joke to Start the Week. Today Mickey Greenblatt is back with another oldie but goodie.

Marshal (Mickey) Greenblatt received degrees from Columbia (BA and BS in Flight Sciences), a DC from Von Karman Institute (1963) and his PhD from Princeton in Aerospace Sciences. He worked as a researcher for NASA and the Naval Research Laboratory. 

With four other scientists, he founded Fusion Systems Corporation, which invented microwave-powered UV lamps for drying coatings. He founded and served on the boards of technology companies and is active in volunteer work. He served on the executive committee of the Jewish Council for the Aging of Greater Washington for many years.

Mickey also loves Jewish jokes and sent us this one to share with you. Here's the setup: Jake and Molly Paretsky have been married for 60 years. It has not been a good marriage. Most of the time Molly is berating Jake for everything he does. Plus, she has a little bit of a shoplifting problem. For example, one time they went shopping, she took a can of peaches and put it into her coat. And then...

Enjoy!

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Yiddish Nostalgia: Avi Hoffman Sings Aaron Lebedeff's Classic "Rumania, Rumania"

Last year Avi Hoffman went on stage with the Klezmer Company Jazz Orchestra to perform Aaron Lebedeff's Classic Yiddish song Rumania, Rumania.

Hoffman, CEO of Yiddishkayt Initiative, is a world-famous actor, who specializes in Jewish culture and Yiddish theater. His long-running “Too Jewish” trilogy has been seen by millions on PBS and in venues around the world. He has produced and presented shows throughout North America, Europe and Israel.

As Adrian Yekkes wrote in his blog,

The song harks back to what was once considered to be the golden era of Romanian Jewry, the years between the first and second world wars. During this time the Yiddish theatre thrived, Jewish culture blossomed and despite continuing discrimination there was a degree of prosperity and progress for Romania's Jews.

It describes the simple pleasures of a less sophisticated, more rural Jewish world. The lyrics describe Romania as a land where everyone is drinking wine, eating delicacies and dancing. It is also described as an amorous land where "he who kisses his own wife is one who is crazy.." and where the cook may be dressed in rags but she is still pretty, makes great puddings and is quite partial to a kiss!

Some of those delicacies are still on offer in Romania and indeed in Israel and old style Jewish restaurants today. These include mamalige - a porridge of yellow corn flour, karnatzl - a spicy beef sausage and patlazhele - an aubergine (or egg plant if you are not British!) salad. The song also mentions two cheeses - kashtaval which can refer to a specific cheese made from sheep milk as well as being a more generic term for yellow cheeses, whilst I am told (but can't find confirmation) that brinze is a kind of cottage cheese. 

Enjoy!

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Yesterday Purim Coincided with St. Patrick's Day. Here's What Saturday Night Live Did With it in 1984

We're still posting Purim content because today is Shushan Purim, an extra day of celebrating Purim in cities that were walled from the time of Joshua. Today the only city that meets this criteria is Jerusalem, and our relatives and friends in Jerusalem are getting an extra day to celebrate.

It's rare for Purim to coincide with St. Patrick's Day, but when they do, it presents an opportunity for lots of fun. The last time this happened was in 1984, when Saturday Night Live took advantage of the occurrence to open the show with a funny skit that blended the two holidays and included a cameo appearance of New York's mayor Ed Koch.

Enjoy the skit, and Shabbat shalom!

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Today is Purim! Here's a Lively Version of the Purim Story by the Students of Australia's Masada College

 

Located in St. Ives, a leafy suburb of Sydney on Australia's North Shore, Masada College is a Jewish co-educational school. In American terms, it's really a high school or secondary school. 

 

Students from all backgrounds are welcome to the school, which prides itself on inclusivity. Its educational mission is to raise responsible individual thinkers with a strong sense of social justice and confidence in their ability to determine their own future. Its graduates win scholarships and awards and embark on a diverse range of career paths. 

 

For Purim, the students of Masada College put on a lively show to retell the basic story of the holiday.

Enjoy, and Chag Sameach!

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Everything You Wanted to Know About Hamantaschen

This week CBS Sunday Morning featured a segment on hamantaschen, the edible symbols of Purim. The hamantasch, a triangular-shaped cookie served during the Jewish holiday of Purim, celebrates the spirit of resilience. 

Correspondent Faith Salie bites into the history of this treat, and of how it came to be associated with the Biblical tale of Esther – and a notorious villain.

In this segment, Gadi Peleg, owner of New York's Breads Bakery, shows the many hamantasch fillings available, including pizza. Stephanie Butnick, Deputy Editor of Tablet magazine and host of the podcast Unorthodox, explains the Purim story and how the cookies were named hamantaschen.

Enjoy, and have a happy Purim!

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Jewish Life Olympics to Return in 2023; South Florida Set to Host the Games (A Purim Spoof)

 This year Purim starts with the reading of Megillat Esther Wednesday night. It is read again Thursday morning, March 17. We wish a Happy Purim to all of our Jewish Humor Central readers. We hope you enjoy this special Purim spoof from the Purim 2022 issue of The Kustanowitz Kronikle. Print it and share it at your Purim Seudah.

 

A Joke to Start the Week - "A Chicken for Shabbat Dinner"

It's another Monday and time for another Joke to Start the Week. This week we're posting another joke from Dr. Jay Orlikoff, a retired dentist from Centereach, New York, a community on Long Island in Suffolk County.

After a distinguished and meritorious dental career, he is shifting his focus to telling and posting jokes on YouTube. We were fortunate to find some of his jokes and we're sharing one of the family-friendly ones with you today. 

Here's the setup: Mrs. Greenberg is having guests over for Shabbat dinner. So she goes to the butcher and she says "I want to get a chicken for dinner." And then...

Enjoy!

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Actress Zoey Deutch Quizzes Jimmy Fallon on His Yiddish Vocabulary

Last week actress Zoey Deutch appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show and quizzed him on his Yiddish vocabulary. Tossing out the words Mishpacha, Shayna Punim, Shmegegge, Shmendrik, and Shmo, She asked Fallon to guess their correct translations. 

Deutch's big screen breakthrough came in the supporting role of Emily Asher, alongside Emma Thompson, Thomas Mann and Alden Ehrenreich in the 2013 fantasy-romance-drama Beautiful Creatures based on a well-known young adult novel of the same name written by authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl and the first book in the Caster Chronicles series. Deutch also appeared on NCIS, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, ABC Family's Switched at Birth and in Marc Cherry's television pilot Hallelujah.

Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with the Y-Studs and Evolution of Shabbat

The Y-Studs, the Yeshiva University a cappella group, has produced Evolution of Shabbat, a video that includes most of the Shabbat songs that we know so well. It's a follow-up to their 2017 video Evolution of Jewish Music chronicling the evolution of Jewish music from the 1600s to the present day.

 

In this just-released video, the Y-Studs sing a medley of excerpts from the Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service, kiddush, zemirot, Shacharit, Torah reading, Musaf, Seuda Shelishit, and Havdalah.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

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Throwback Thursday Entertainment Showcase: Neil Diamond Introduces "Sweet Caroline" in 1969

On Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" is as popular today as it was in 1969, the year he recorded it and sang it on the entertainment circuit, including this performance on the Ed Sullivan Show on November 30, 1969.

On this Throwback Thursday we go back 53 years to watch a young Neil Diamond caress the lyrics of his most popular song.

In a 2007 interview, Diamond stated the inspiration for his song was John F. Kennedy's daughter, Caroline, who was eleven years old at the time it was released. Diamond sang the song for her at her 50th birthday celebration in 2007. On December 21, 2011, in an interview on CBS's The Early Show, Diamond said that a magazine cover photo of Caroline as a young child on a horse with her parents created an image in his mind, and the rest of the song came together about five years after seeing the picture.  

However, in 2014 Diamond said the song was about his then-wife Marsha, but he needed a three-syllable name to fit the melody. The song has proven to be enduringly popular and, as of November 2014, has sold over two million digital downloads in the United States.

The song reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart the week ending August 16, 1969, and was certified gold by the RIAA on August 18, 1969, for sales of one million singles."Sweet Caroline" was also the first of fifty-eight entries on the US Easy Listening chart, peaking at #3.

In the autumn of 1969, Diamond performed "Sweet Caroline" on several television shows. It later reached No. 8 on the UK singles chart in March 1971.

In July 2021, "Sweet Caroline" re-entered the UK Singles Chart again 50 years after its first UK release, following its use by England supporters during Euro 2020. It re-entered the chart at No. 48 on the week ending 15 July and a week later it rose to No. 20.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Diamond changed some of the lyrics to "Hands ... washing hands ... don't touch me ... I won't touch you."

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#Throwback Thursday    #TBT

The Great Jewish Comedians - Menashe Skulnik on the Ed Sullivan Show

Menashe Skulnik (Yiddish: מנשה סקולניק, May 15, 1890 – June 4, 1970) was an American actor, primarily known for his roles in Yiddish theater in New York City.

Skulnik was also popular on radio, playing Uncle David on The Goldbergs for 19 years. He made many television and Broadway appearances as well, including successful runs in Clifford Odets's The Flowering Peach and Harold Rome's The Zulu and the Zayda. 

Skulnik knew exactly what he was in comedy: "I play a schlemiel, a dope. Sometimes they call me the Yiddish Charlie Chaplin, and I don't like this. Chaplin's dope is a little bit of a wiseguy. He's got a little larceny in him. I am a pure schlemiel, with no string attached." Skulnik was dubbed the "East Side's Chaplin" by the New York Evening Journal in 1935.

Here is Skulnik in a rare TV appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1966. Enjoy!

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Unsung Jewish Composers and Lyricists of the Great American Songbook - George David Weiss and "What a Wonderful World"

It's well known that many of the songs that comprise the collection known as The Great American Song Book were written by Jewish composers and lyricists, mostly in the decades between 1930 and 1965, but also going back to the turn of the 20th century.

The most prolific of these writers are responsible for the great majority of songs. Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin lead the long list of songwriters and their songs number in the hundreds.

But there are many others that were written by composers and lyricists that you very likely never heard of. These songwriters wrote lots of pop songs to stand alone and as parts of Broadway and Off-Broadway shows and Hollywood movies. Most of the songs are long forgotten, but a few of them have become popular standards, and are sung as much today as in the years they were written.

In this series, which will run in Jewish Humor Central on a weekly basis, we will focus on one songwriter at a time, and feature a video performance of their most popular song.

Today we're featuring George David Weiss, who was born to a Jewish family in the Bronx. He originally planned to be a lawyer or accountant, but out of a love for music he attended the Juilliard School of Music, developing a talent for writing and arranging. He wrote the English lyrics for “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

Weiss is best known for writing Louis Armstrong's big hit, What a Wonderful World, a song that is simply about appreciating the beauty of your surroundings.

 

In the song, Louis sings of seeing various events and natural wonders that make him smile, while also perhaps lamenting the passage of time, noting: "I hear babies crying, I watch them grow, they'll learn much more than I'll never know".

 

Weiss was also said to be inspired by Armstrong's ability to bring people of different races together.

 

The song was not initially a hit in America, where it sold less than 1,000 copies because ABC Records head Larry Newton did not like the song and chose not to promote it.

 

However, it was a huge success in the UK, reaching number one and becoming the biggest-selling single of 1968. The song made Louis Armstrong the oldest male to top the UK Singles Chart. Tom Jones later broke this record in 2009.

 

In 1988, Armstrong's recording appeared in the film Good Morning, Vietnam (despite the film being set in 1965 — two years before it was recorded) and was re-released as a single. This time, it reached a new peak of number 32.

 

With music by Bob Thiele, here is the hit recording by Louis Armstrong.

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "Poker Game"

It's another Monday and time for another Joke to Start the Week. Today Mickey Greenblatt is back with another good one.

Marshal (Mickey) Greenblatt received degrees from Columbia (BA and BS in Flight Sciences), a DC from Von Karman Institute (1963) and his PhD from Princeton in Aerospace Sciences. He worked as a researcher for NASA and the Naval Research Laboratory. 

With four other scientists, he founded Fusion Systems Corporation, which invented microwave-powered UV lamps for drying coatings. He founded and served on the boards of technology companies and is active in volunteer work. He served on the executive committee of the Jewish Council for the Aging of Greater Washington for many years.

Mickey also loves Jewish jokes and sent us this one to share with you. Here's the setup: Six Floridians were all retired. They continued the card game they had been playing for decades back in New York. And then...

Enjoy!

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It's Adar II - Here Come the Purim Videos! Let's Start with Purim Besimcha by the Brazilian Yeshiva Boys

Mishenichnas Adar Marbim Besimcha. From the beginning of the month of Adar we increase our simcha by sharing the latest Purim videos. 

Now that we're into Adar II and Purim is just 10 days away, let's start the Purim celebration with a video produced by the students of Yeshiva Guevoha Beer Avraham in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

Every year the bachurim of the Yeshiva Guevoha gather to compose a fun and happy song for Purim to share with all the community around the world. This year their song is Purim Besimcha.

Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with Lecha Dodi by Hazzanim Ari Litvak and Norman Cohen Falah

The lyrics of the Lecha Dodi prayer correspond to a poem composed by the kabbalist Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz who lived in the mid-16th century and whose motivation was to express the sanctity of Shabbat.

This video was recorded in Chapultepec Forest, the main park in Mexico City by hazanim Ari Litvak and Norman Cohen Falah. Norman is the composer of the melody that is interpreted to the Argentine chacarera rhythm.

Cantor Norman Cohen Falah is a versatile and sensitive interpreter of Jewish music and an accomplished songwriter. Whether at services, weddings, or concerts, the sweet quality of his voice, coupled with his enthusiastic performance, brings to life the joy and spirit of the Jewish heritage, appealing to all audiences. 

Ari Litvak has been a hazzan of the Bet El Community in Mexico since 2003. He was trained mainly in his native Buenos Aires and has been a community musical director since he was 13 years old.

Enjoy, and Shabbat Shalom!

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Throwback Thursday Comedy Showcase: Allan Sherman Sings "Westchester Hadassah", a Takeoff on "Winchester Cathedral"

Allan Sherman had a huge repertory of parody songs, so huge that we keep finding some on the Internet that we had missed when listening to his many albums.

One such song is Westchester Hadassah, a parody of the song Winchester Cathedral, released in 1966 by The New Vaudeville Band, a British novelty group established by the song's composer, Geoff Stephens.

It reached No.1 in Canada on the RPM 100 national singles charts co-charting with the Dana Rollin version, and shortly thereafter in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song won the 1967 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary (R&R) Recording, despite not being a rock and roll song. 

Enjoy!

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   #Throwback Thursday      #TBT

Wacky Wednesday Comedy Special: Morey Amsterdam Delivers One-Liners on The Ed Sullivan Show

It's another Wacky Wednesday and we're taking you back 54 years to 1968 when comedian Morey Amsterdam made another appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Back in 2015 we posted a classic Morey Amsterdam standup routine with Polish jokes, doctor jokes, and golf jokes. This week we found another one of his routines in which he delivers a non-stop series of one-liners.

Amsterdam was a great stand-up comedian in the days when political correctness was unheard of. His ability to come up with a joke on any subject earned him the name of The Human Joke Machine.

Amsterdam had his own TV shows from 1948 to 1950. Among his regular guests was song-and-dance man Art Carney. In 1950 he hosted the comedy-variety show Broadway Open House, TV's first late-night entertainment show, on NBC. It demonstrated the potential for late-night programming and led to the later development of The Tonight Show.

Enjoy!

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From the Catskills to TV: A Nostalgic Look-Back at Lou Goldstein and His "Simon Says" Game

 

If you spent any time in the Catskill Mountains of New York back in the twentieth century, especially if you were lucky to be at the Grossingers Hotel in Liberty, you must remember the Simon Says game that Lou Goldstein played with guests almost every day during the summer season.

 

Born in Poland in 1921, Goldstein performed his shtick at Grossingers from 1948-1986. He also did the half-time shows for NBA teams all over the country. Likewise the NHL and baseball games all featured his nationally known "Simon Says". He enjoyed doing these shows at all the Catskills Resorts, including the Pines, Concord, Nevele, Paramount, Granit, Swan Lake, and the Raleigh. 

 

Later, Goldstein brought the game to television and the ABC show Superstars. It was amazing to see how quickly he took control of the audience and used his rapid-fire instructions to get most of the players out.

We enjoyed watching this bit of nostalgia from the Borscht Belt era and hope that you will too.

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A Joke to Start the Week - "How to Buy Bagels"

It's another Monday and time for another Joke to Start the Week. This week we're posting another joke from Dr. Jay Orlikoff, a retired dentist from Centereach, New York, a community on Long Island in Suffolk County.

After a distinguished and meritorious dental career, he is shifting his focus to telling and posting jokes on YouTube. We were fortunate to find some of his jokes and we're sharing one of the family-friendly ones with you today. 

Here's the setup: Mr. Schwartz is a very successful banker in the financial district of Manhattan. In front of his building there's a pushcart from which an old lady sells bagels for 50 cents each. And then...

Enjoy!

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Comedy Showcase: Rita Rudner on What It's Like to be an Older Woman

We've been big fans of Rita Rudner ever since she started to appear on late night TV in the 1980s.

One of the hallmarks of her comedy is that it's clean, free from the vulgarity and shouting that many stand-up comics find necessary.  Her delivery is demure, tasteful, full of wry observations, and very funny.

Rudner started her career as a dancer, then switched to stand-up comedy about her dating experiences.  She married British producer Martin Bergman about 30 years ago and they have a daughter.  She is fond of Jewish humor but generally reserves it for when she performs for Jewish audiences.

Rita just released video clips of some recent performances. Today we're sharing her observations on what it's like to be an older woman.

 

Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with "Ana Bekoach" by Rav Itzhak Azran

This week we welcome Shabbat with Ana Bekoach, a liturgical poem from the Kabbalat Shabbat service that appears in the siddur just before Lecha Dodi. It's a Kabbalistic prayer composed by Rav Nehunia Ben Hakannah. It is also sung at weddings.

Known as the 42-letter Name of God, Ana Bekoach is a unique formula built of 42 letters written in seven sentences of six words each. Each of the seven sentences correspond to the seven days of the week, seven specific angels, and to a particular heavenly body. The letters that make up Ana Bekoach are encoded within the first 42 letters of the book of Genesis.

The kabbalists explain that this combination of letters takes us back to the time of Creation, and each time we meditate on a particular sequence, we return to the original uncorrupted energy that built the world. By performing the Ana Bekoach meditation, we enrich our lives with unadulterated spiritual Light and positive energy.

This version of Ana Bekoach is a version sung by Rav Itzhak Azran. The Hebrew text and translation appear below the video.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

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ANA B'CHO'ACH We, we beg Hashem with the strength and greatness of thy right arm, untangle our knotted fate. Accept your people's song, elevate, elevate and purify us We beg Hashem with the strength and greatness of thy right arm, untangle our knotted fate. Accept your people's song, elevate and purify us Please, heroic one, those who pursue your uniqueness guard them as the pupil of an eye. Bless them, purify them, pity them May your righteousness always reward them. Powerful and Holy One Powerful and Holy One, in goodness lead your flock. Unique and proud one, to your people turn, who remember your holiness. Accept our cries, and hear our screams, oh knower of mysteries. (Blessed is the name of his noble kingdom forever and ever.)

Throwback Thursday Comedy Special - Allan Sherman (Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah) Returns to Camp Granada

Many of us have memorized the words of Allan Sherman's big hit novelty song Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah (A Letter from Camp) that he recorded in 1963. But did you know that in 1966 he came up with a sequel, Return to Camp Granada?

Sherman appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on April 24, 1966 to sing the updated version.

The melody of the original version is taken from the ballet Dance of the Hours from the Opera "La Gioconda" by Amilcare Ponchielli, while Sherman wrote the lyrics with Lou Busch.

He based the lyrics on letters of complaint which he received from his son Robert who was attending Camp Champlain, a summer camp in Westport, New York.

In 2020, the song was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Here's Allan Sherman on the Ed Sullivan Show with his Return to Camp Granada.

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