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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Culture Was This Hippie Yenta the Zelig of Rock ‘n’ Roll?
Reading between the lines of the new documentary “Danny Says,” about music industry insider Danny Fields, it’s not quite clear if Fields was simply a Zelig of rock ‘n’ roll — linked in one way or another to the Beatles, the Doors, Cream, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, MC5, and the Ramones — or a phenomenal…
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Culture A Year After His Death, Theodore Bikel Continues To Defy Typecasting
It’s been just a little over a year since Theodore Bikel died — he passed away a year ago July at age 91 — and as such, his legacy has yet to be cemented. This is undoubtedly due in part to the difficulty of encapsulating the legacy of a veritable Zelig – an Austrian-born Zionist…
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Culture Bruce Springsteen’s Jewish Neighbors — and Other Highlights of The Boss’s Autobiography
The first time Jews Bruce Springsteen mentions Jews in his impressionistic new autobiography “Born to Run,” he’s talking about the family who occupied the other half of a duplex his family moved into in 1966. More specifically, and perhaps not surprisingly, it has to do with the family’s two teenage daughters. “In the half we…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History of Cat Stevens
When I went off to sleep-away camp in 1972 for the first time, the soundtrack of the summer — especially for those like me, who arrived with guitar in hand — was all Cat Stevens, all the time. By 1972, Stevens had already achieved his greatest success with a stunning trio of albums released in…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History of Lollapalooza
In the league of “be careful what you wish for,” near the top must rank the Lollapalooza Festival, originally conceived by cofounder Perry Farrell in 1991 as the farewell tour for his band, Jane’s Addiction. Farrell signed on some of his favorite bands for a six-week traveling festival, with a diverse musical lineup including Living…
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Music Did Allen Ginsberg Secretly Want To Be Bob Dylan?
Let’s start right from the beginning by getting this out of the way: Allen Ginsberg was no Bob Dylan. But Bob Dylan is no Allen Ginsberg, either. However, the funny thing is that the two of them, each top in his chosen field, seem to have had aspirations to be the other. Dylan’s man crush…
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Culture Paul Simon’s Latest Masterpiece Has Surprising Biblical Overtones
Paul Simon released his 13th solo album, “Stranger to Stranger,” to nearly unanimous and deservedly great critical acclaim last Friday. With Bob Dylan stuck in a rut of recording Frank Sinatra tribute albums, and Leonard Cohen churning out live albums at a rapid pace (“Live in Dublin,” “Live in London” – can “Live at Leeds”…
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Culture Canadian Klezmer Camp Will Pay Tribute to Sholem Aleichem
For twenty years, KlezKanada has offered a summertime retreat for musicians and music lovers in an idyllic setting in the Laurentian mountains at Camp B’nai Brith in Lantier, Quebec, an hour outside Montreal. In some ways, it has been the summer camp version of the now-defunct wintertime KlezKamp that took place for 30-some years in…
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Yiddish בער קאָטלערמאַן געווינט די י. י. סיגאַל פּרעמיע פֿאַר זײַן בוך דערציילונגען „סאַמאָיעד“Ber Kotlerman wins J. I Segal award for his collection of stories, ‘Samoyed’
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Film & TV Hermann Goering’s personal art dealer plundered the world for decades; his victims’ descendants are still seeking justice
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Opinion I’m a Jewish parent and biblical scholar in Houston — I’m enraged that Texas is adopting this biblically illiterate new curriculum
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