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Just listen to that steaming brand new version of My Yiddishe Mama, recorded a few months before the death of Leo Fuld. Leo was alive and kicking til the very last day and was accompanied during his last television-performance by an Algerian Rai-band. The Xtra Oriental-version of Mama was, like all the other songs of The Legend, produced by Mohamed el-Fers and arranged by Kees Post. MY YIDDISHE MAMA (EXTRA ORIENTAL) (Jack Yellen/Ben Pollack)Fuld's trade-mark as it sounded in the fifties during his concerts in the Auberge des Pyramides in Cairo. It was during this time the legendary Egyptian singer Oum Kalsoum came to see Fuld. Leo surprised her by singing in Arabic, but she insisted to hear `Yiddishe Mama'. The next day Fuld rehearsed with the orchestra and when Oum Kalsoum came again he surprised her with a `Mama' in `extra oriental style'. The song was written in 1925 by the Poland born Jack Yellen, together with drummer, vocalist, bandleader Ben Pollack. Yellen also co-wrote `Ain't She Sweet' and `Happy Day's Are Here Again'. Sophie Tucker made `Mama' a top 5 USA hit in 1928, English on one side and Yiddish on the B-side. Fuld combined both in one track and made it a hit in the rest of the world. Mp3 My
Yiddishe Mama (extra oriental version) OIF'N WEG STEHT A BOIM (Itsik Manger)`By the wayside stands a tree bent against the storm. All the birds have left it alone. I will become a bird and sit in the tree to comfort it during the winter with my songs. 'No, Leo', mother weeps, 'you will freeze to death in that tree. But if you must, put on your scarf and your galoshes, wear your fur hat and warm underwear.' I lift up my wings but cannot fly. All those clothes mamma puts on her weak nestling are too heavy. Sadly I gaze into my mothers eyes. Her love didn't let me become a bird.' Many of the songs by the well-known Yiddish poet Itsik Manger (1901-1969) are based on folk songs. That was also the case with `Oif'n weg steht a boim'. A Yiddish song does not have to sound static after it is fixed as `a standard'. Listen to Leo's dynamic version of `a boim'. Mp3
Oif´n weg steht a boim (extra oriental version) MEIN SHTETELE BELZ (Jacob Jacobs/Alexander Olshanetsky)`Tell me quick, old man, now I want to know everything. How's that little house that once sparkled? Does the little tree I planted still bloom? ' 'That little house is old, overgrown with grass, the old roof crumbles, windows are without glass, the attic is crooked, the walls bent. You'd never recognize it.' `Belz, my little town Belz, my little home where I spend my childhood years. In that poor little house where I laughed with all the children. Every Sabbath I'd run to read by the river. Belz, where I had so many beautiful dreams.' One of the most popular Yiddish songs depict childhood and expressed his longing for this Eastern European town. The Moldavian town Belz in Bessarabia is now called Beltsi. It stands in the former USSR, just about 60 km north of the Roumanian city of Yaas (now Iasi). `To read by the river' must be the tributary of the Dnestr-river, who rises in Carpathians and flows 1400 km later into the Black Sea. GRIENEN DAG (Moishe Oysher/Zalman Rozental)`Near my town there's a little house with a green roof and many trees around. Father, mother, my sister Resele and I, all four of us live there together. Father works hard all his life and when he returns home, he sometimes brings presents: a horse that neighs named Mitsich, a dog that barks named Tsutsik. He brings a snow-white goose, and a hen that clucks, clucks until she lays an egg. Mother puts the hen over the eggs and, oh, what a `moifes', miracle! We have pretty chicks! And father brings a goat that shakes his beard, and when you put that goat before the wagon, by itself it becomes a horse! And my father, mother, Resele and I, since a long time we live happy in that little house with the green roof.' Zalman Rozental (1892-1959) wrote the words of this song, published in 1925 as `Bay dem stetl'. Fuld recorded it on a different melody written by the famous Cantor Moishe Oysher (1906-1958) as `Grienen Dag'. MOISHELE, MEIN FREIND (Mordechai Gebirtig)`How are you, Moishele? You were my chabber (friend) many years ago. Remember our pranks in kheyder (religious school), and the Rebe with his stick? And how are all our other friends from these days? How often I think of them: Samele, Josele, Awremele... your sister Rochele, who was the love of Berele and hated me without reason and left me with a never healed wound in my soul. I dreamed of us as children, that I was again amidst you. But we're old Jews now...' A few months before Fuld recorded his `Moishele' he performed on Dutch National television, accompanied by the North African rockgroup Railand. Fuld relived the sad but wonderful years of his youth. It was a sensation and he had to encore five times! FRAITAG OIF DER NACHT (Trad. arr. C. Post)`In my neigbourhood people lived in poverty, but tried to make some savings for the Sabbath-evening. For a little piece of meat, some wine, a merry wife and every Jew felt like a King. On Friday night singing and laughter replaced the sorrow of the day for a moment'. After Fuld sang `Fraitag' during a party with Albert Einstein, the genius commented: `These Yiddish folksongs, why they are the most sincere, the most heartfelt I have heard anywhere? They are the truest expression of the soul of a people!' DOS PINTELE YID (Arnold Perlmitter/Herman Wohl/Louis Gilrod)`Little Jew, your crown is the spark of Jewishness. You suffered greatly for this, your limbs tormented, your brothers tortured, everyone bathed in your blood. Countless libels were leveled against you, still that spark remains strong...' Probably world's most famous bar-mitzvoh song. The public reading of the Torah (first five books of the Bible) is a symbol of maturity, the first demonstration of being a full member of the community. `Dos Pintele Yid' was the titlesong of a play by Boris Thomasheftsky in 1909. Words by Louis Gilrod, music by Arnold Perlmutter and Herman Wohl. SHEIN WIE DIE LEWONE (Joseph Rumshinsky/Chaim Tauber)`Pretty as the moon, bright as the stars, you are a heaven-sent gift to me.' `Sure Fuld can deliver a song and for sure he's the man who kept the tradition and shaped Yiddish music into what it is today', said Chaim Tauber (1901-1972) when he first heard Leo sing his `Schein Wie Die Lewone'. The composer of this beautiful song is Joseph Rumshinsky (1881-1956). GESSELACH (Max Kletter)`Old houses and fences of broken boards. No money to buy anything but bread. But when the musician come to play, we're happy to throw a few `grosschen' out of the window. That narrow `gesselach', among family and friends, in better and worse. The crooked and narrow streets, the working field of the fiddler.' Childhood remembered in this song written by Leo's friend Max Kletter: `Max wrote it in 1942. When I returned from the USA to that little street of my European childhood, the houses were bombed by the Germans, and gone were my father, mother, brother... Just one sister survived.' AZ DER REBBE TANTST (Trad. arr. C. Post)`When the Rabbi dances, all the Hassidim dance. When the Rabbi sings, all the Hassidim sing. When the Rabbi laughs, all the Hassidim laugh and when the Rabbi sleeps, all the Hassidim sleep.' To the Hassidim, singing and dancing was like praying. Like the dervish'mystics they sought to achieve a state of ecstasy. The folksong `Az Der Rebbe Tantst' passed on through oral transmission when the young Fuld served as a sjammes in a Polish Synagogue. A variant of this song was published by Joel Engel in a children's game song in 1916. WO AHIN SOLL ICH GEH'N (S. Korntayer/Oscar Strock/Leo Fuld)When Edith Piaf was introduced to Leo Fuld, she approached him singing `Wo Ahin Soll Ich Geh'n'. For fourteen weeks Piaf and Fuld shared the stage of the Paris ABC-theatre. Fuld wrote the English text of `Wo Ahin Soll Ich Geh'n' in ten minutes. He made it a million-seller and later it was recorded by a few dozen others: Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Miriam Makeba... And then, in 1997, he himself recorded this refreshing version, as if it was 1948 and Leo was singing in the Frank Sinatra'Show. DER SIDEREL (YIDDELE BRIEDEREL) (Joseph Kammen/Louis Gilrod)`Oppressed and persecuted, the Sider (prayerbook) is the Jew's companion and integral part of his life. Comforting as disasters are ruining lives and minds.' This song was a big hit in the Yewish play `Der Siderel' in the thirties. It was for years on the Fuld-repertoire until the Second World War started. He never sung it again after the war until he made this beautiful recording in 1997. A KLESMER YINGEL (OI MAMME! BIN ICH FARLIEBT) (Abe Ellstein)`So, when a girl of good family falls in love with a travelling musician? Hold me, Mamma, when I look in his dark eyes while he's playing one of his iree songs I can't control myself.' Abraham Ellstein (1907-1963) wrote also the music for `Yidl mit'n fidl', titlesong from the Yiddish film with the same name starring Molly Picon. `Oi Mamme! Bin Ich Farliebt' was one of Fulds hits in the late thirties. RESELE (Mordechai Gebirtig)`In a quiet street, in the attic of a little house lives my dear Rezele. Every evening I pass under her window, whistle and call her to come, come, come. A window opens, the old house awakens and Rezele's voice is heard: 'Wait a little, I shall soon be ready. Walk around in the street a while.' Cheerfully I walk, singing and cracking nuts, listening to the pattern of her feet skipping down the steps. I embrace and kiss her, come, come come. 'I beg you, Davidl, not to whistle anymore. Mother is upset, for it is not polite for Jewish boys to whistle. Just give me a signal in Yiddish when you call'. I won't whistle anymore. I will even become pious because of you. I will be as observant as your mother and go to the synagogue every Sabbath. 'I believe you, my dearest, and for that I shall knit you a bag for your `tefillin' with a Star of David. And if people admire it, tell them your Rezele made it for you.' I thank you for your gift. I love you dearly, Rezele. I love your mother, love the street, the little old house. I love the stones near your house since you walk on them. But listen, your mother is already calling you to come home. So cheerfully I go my way, singing and cracking nuts, listening to the pattern of her feet on the steps. Again the house and street fall silent. Come to me in my dreams, Rezel, come...' Like `Moishele' this song is by Mordechai Gebirtig (1877-1942), one of the greatest and last Yiddish folk poets, killed by the nazi's. Fuld always loved his simple folklike songs, popular in Eastern Europe and throughout the Jewish world. OIF'N PRIPETSHIK (Mark Warshawsky, arr. C. Post)`Remember children, what you're learning here. Say and repeat it over again: the letter `kometz Alef' is pronounced: O. When you grow older you'll understand that this alphabet contains the tears and weeping of our people.' Leo Fuld was admitted to kheyder from the age of four. In this dimly lit but well-heated schoolroom the seeds of learning were planted. The Rabbi teaches the children the first letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The song is written by Mark Warshawsky, a discovery of Sholom Aleichem. In 1953 Fuld gave a concert in the local foundouq of el-Ghriba during the Lag B'Omer Festival. He sung to celebrate that 2500 years ago a cedarwood door from the Temple was brought from Jerusalem to Tunisia. This is a reconstruction of that hot Tunisian night, when Fuld was accompanied by the kapelle of Yacub B'chiri. © Mohamed el-Fers. Other recordings of the King of Yiddish music... Seeco CELP
420 (Popular) Series Jeweler Sidney Siegel reportedly in 1943 poured the assets of his Casa Siegel jewelry store into the founding of a record label and launched a full-fledged American operation, Seeco Records and its sister label Tropical. Seeco was a "world music" label long before the term had been coined and the direct forerunner of present-day companies like Putumayo and Island Records. The label's top-selling artists included Vicentico Valdés, singer with Tito Puente's orchestra, Celia Cruz and the King of Yiddish Music Leo Fuld. Sony CD
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