And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost
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And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost
What started out as a mutual affinity for kitschy Jewish album covers-think Neil Diamond baring his chest hair on the cover of Hot August Night or Barbra Streisand in hot pants on the cover of Streisand Superman-soon became a quest for identity, history, and culture between the grooves of LPs. Together, Roger Bennett and Josh Kun embarked on a thrilling journey, scouring the world to collect thousands of vinyl LPs from attics, garage sales, and dusty archives. Pieced together, these scratched, once-loved and now-forgotten audio gems tell a vibrant tale: the story of Jews in America. And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl spans the history of Jewish recorded music from the 1940s to the 1980s, weaving an account that begins with sacred songs and ends with the holy trinity of Neil, Barbra, and Barry. The LPs found here are also a love letter to forgotten moments in Jewish American pop history, celebrating well-dressed cantors singing Christmas tunes, Long Island suburbanites dancing the mambo, and Chassidic prog-rockers. The music, much of which is no longer available in any format, is brought to life through commentary from writers Aimee Bender, Etgar Keret, Michael Wex, and Shalom Auslander; performers Sandra Bernhard and Motown legend Lamont Dozier; music critics Oliver Wang and Anne Powers; and TV pioneer Norman Lear. A gateway to a forgotten kingdom of sound, the good, the bad, and the ugly of Jewish vinyl gives this aspect of Jewish culture the attention it so richly deserves.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Nostalgia:
It's a fun book to go through and remember all the music from the past 50 or so years. It's focus is on what Jews listened to not just Jewish music. Fun!
Perfect gift for your son, the Yiddish speaking songwriter:
OK, my mom is long gone, but my sweetie got me this book for Hanukah and I know she really loves me. I own a few of the albums shown here. One of them caused me to break my mother's fancy shmancy marble coffee table in two when I was a kid, the music made me dance so hard. Ah, the memories. If you know any (living) Yiddish speaking songwriters (there have to be more than five or ten besides me, I'm certain), this would make a perfect gift. Beyond that, this is the kind of book that would appeal to record... more info
The perfect gift for at least one of those crazy nights.:
I laughed. I cried. I frantically looked through my own large record collection to find the very small number of the albums discussed within the book. Even if you have never heard of more than a tiny fraction of the musical artists discussed herein, you will enjoy the discussion of how this music/art fit within the culture. And you will dig it, even if you are not Jewish. Even more so if you are. Nah...it doesn't matter-all but Osama Bin Laden will love this book.
