Seth Rogovoy, a contributing editor at the Forward, is the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet (Scribner) and Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison (Oxford University Press).
Seth Rogovoy
By Seth Rogovoy
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Music On Her 75th Birthday, Joni Mitchell’s Secret Jewish History
Joni Mitchell is widely acclaimed, and rightfully so, for being one of the greatest lyricists and musical visionaries of the rock era: the equal of Bob Dylan and — well, there are no other equals. Mitchell and Dylan share the seemingly paradoxical status of being utter mavericks who have had unparalleled influence over everyone who…
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Music Barbra Streisand’s Latest Is Surprisingly Political (And Astonishingly Good)
Ever wonder what’s on Barbra Streisand’s mind these days? Well, wonder no more. This past Friday, Streisand released a brand-new album, the aptly titled “Walls,” which kicks off with a new song called “What’s on My Mind.” “What happened to just being kind? That’s what’s on my mind,” Streisand tells us, on one of the…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History Of Queen
Had things gone the way they were originally supposed to, the lead role of Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody” – the biopic about the rock group Queen that opens on Friday, November 2 – would have been played by Sacha Baron Cohen instead of Rami Malek. That’s right: Instead of the Los Angeles-born son of…
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Music The Secret Jewish History Of Everyone Nominated For The 2019 Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall Of Fame
The nominees for the 2019 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony have been announced, and as in past years, it’s a diverse if somewhat bizarre group, ranging from commercial heavy-metal group Def Leppard to Detroit proto-punks the MC5 to pop-R&B megastar Janet Jackson to English art-rockers Radiohead. Trying to make sense of the…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History Of ‘A Star Is Born’
Like the cicadas that spend most of their lives underground, emerging only every 13 or 17 years (and how they decide is for you to know and me to find out), the movie musical “A Star Is Born” gets remade every few decades or so. The latest incarnation, starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, is…
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Music How An Irish Playwright Found The Soul Of Bob Dylan
About a quarter way into Conor McPherson’s play with music, “Girl From the North Country” (running through Sunday, December 9, at the Public Theater in lower Manhattan), a bible salesman unaccountably mutters this apparent non sequitur: Big storm’s coming, my boy. Here. Europe. Everywhere. You ever wonder what woulda happened if the Jews met the…
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Music Paul Simon Gets Exceedingly Jewish At His Penultimate Concert
The first major Jewish moment of the first of two “farewell concerts” by Paul Simon at Madison Square Garden last night (the second takes place tonight and the curtain comes down on the final show of the “Homeward Bound Farewell Tour” at Flushing Meadows Corona Park on Saturday night) occurred at an unlikely moment. It…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History Of ‘60 Minutes’
As of this month, the influential TV newsmagazine “60 Minutes” has brought investigative journalism, political commentary and celebrity interviews into American living rooms for half a century. If you ever detected something inherently Jewish about the program, its creator and longtime producer, Don Hewitt — whose Russian-born father changed his name from Hurwitz when he…
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