Seth Rogovoy is a contributing editor at the Forward. He is the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet (Scribner, 2009) and the forthcoming Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison (Oxford University Press).
Seth Rogovoy
By Seth Rogovoy
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Music Klezmer Revivalists Hail The Lords Of The ‘Tanz!’
In 1955, just when klezmer was about to end its half-century-long run as a viable commercial and creative outlet for immigrant-era Jewish musicians and a few younger instrumentalists who took up their torch, the great Ukrainian-born clarinetist Dave Tarras recorded one more album at the urging and with the creative guidance of his son-in-law, Sam…
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Culture In Praise Of Ruth Rubin, Patron Saint Of Yiddish Song
Ruth Rubin was the Alan Lomax of Yiddish folk song. For over 40 years, she visited Jewish communities around the world, tape recorder in hand, assembling a collection of more than 2,000 songs, including lullabies, children’s songs, love songs, drinking songs, satirical songs, and work songs, gathered from ordinary (and some extraordinary) “informants.” Hers was…
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Film & TV The Secret Jewish History Of Rock Hudson
Who was the biggest male star in Hollywood in the 1950s and ‘60s? John Wayne? Too typecast in Westerns. Marlon Brando? Too weird and rebellious. James Dean? Died too young. It may be hard to remember or to imagine today, but the biggest star in Hollywood back then was a clean-cut, all-American, handsome guy named…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History Of Wilco Frontman Jeff Tweedy
If you think the most Jewish thing Jeff Tweedy ever did was to name a Wilco album “Schmilco,” think again. The truth is that Tweedy — the founder and main creative force behind the indie-rock group Wilco, celebrating its 25th anniversary next year — married a Jewish woman, raised two Jewish boys into manhood, and,…
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Culture The secret Jewish history Of Mary Poppins
When it came to the movie, it was P.L. Travers versus the Sherman Brothers
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Culture The Secret Jewish History Of Connie Francis
Last April, Stereogum – an online indie music magazine — referred to Connie Francis as “a Jewish singer from New Jersey who came up working with Brill Building songwriters.” They got it half-right, anyway. Francis, who turns 80 on December 12, was born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero to solidly Italian-American parents in Newark. Early in…
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Music The Secret Jewish History of Roger Daltrey
In his new memoir, “Thanks a Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite: My Story” (Henry Holt) – a horribly titled but entertaining and revealing read — Roger Daltrey gives his version of the story of the rock band, the Who, territory that his bandmate and on-again, off-again friend and collaborator, Pete Townshend, already reviewed in his own chronicle,…
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Film & TV The Secret Jewish History of ‘The White Shadow’
Forty years ago this fall, an unassuming yet groundbreaking CBS-TV series called “The White Shadow,” about an inner-city high-school basketball team coached by a former white NBA player, made its debut, bringing the realities of racism, alcoholism, drugs, gang violence, domestic violence, student violence against teachers, student sex with teachers, teen pregnancy, teen death, sexually…
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