Lesley West and Marc Bolan are shown on the slide.

On a very real level I think that speaks to important parts of the Jewish American experience: • Being an Outsider, not being understood or accepted. In many ways this is the essential element of rock. • Being part of a minority and connecting with other minorities. (Race, class, gender…) • Resistance to the empowered majority, a key part to American Judaism. (Rejecting assimilation.) • A mashup of many cultures.

1 Across all periods and styles of music, there have always been Jews in rock - whether as music executives (the Chess Brothers) or songwriters (Doc Pomus and the folk) or performers such as those listed above. But this isn’t a recitation of Jews in rock. It is more a discussion about the invention of and directions of rock and roll.

Why has rock been so important to us and why have we contributed so much to this American art form?

2 Under the Code Noir African slaves living in New Orleans were given time off on Sundays and allowed to gather at the Place Congo, which became Congo Square. They were allowed to perform a variety of traditional African dances including the Bamboula, Calinda, Congo, Carabine and Juba while people watched. The rhythms of the African music played there can still be heard today in New Orleans funerals, second lines and Mardi Gras Indians parades.

The fusion of remembered African tunes played on the instruments of French chamber music is what gave birth to jazz.

3 Sweet William makes advances to Barbara Allen, she rejects him. He somehow dies from sorrow and she dies because “how dare she reject a man’s advances.” Remember this when you hear someone criticizing rap music.

Pretty Polly “is a murder ballad, telling of a young woman lured into the forest where she is killed and buried in a shallow grave.” Makes you want to sing and dance just thinking about it.

4 Let’s look at the evolution of one song: The song The Streets of Laredo also known as The Cowboy’s Lament was first published in 1910 in John Lomax’s collection “Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads.” Frank H. Maynard claimed ownership of the song. But the roots of the lyrics go back to an 18th century Irish song called “The Unfortunate Rake.” And the Irish ballad has the same melody as a entitled “Spanish Ladies.” The Unfortunate Rake is also considered the inspiration for the New Orleans classic St. James Infirmary made famous by , and covered by everyone from Cab Calloway to The White Stripes.

The same basic song has been an Irish song, a sea shanty, a cowboy song, a jazz song, and a rock song.

Along with other forms of contributing music you can include klezmer, a mash up of jazz and Jewish music.

5 The family had escaped the pogroms relatively unscathed, but life in America was not great. His father had been a cantor in Russia, but couldn’t find work here. He took a job at a kosher meat market and gave Hebrew lessons on the side. When he died, everyone in the family had to pitch in. His mother worked as a midwife. 8-year old Irving began delivering newspapers. According to one story Irving stopped to look at a ship departing for China and became so entranced that he didn't see a swinging crane, which knocked him into the river. When he was fished out after going down for the third time, he was still holding in his clenched fist the five pennies he earned that day. By age 13 he had dropped out of school. Perhaps influenced by his father’s career he joined with a group that of kids that sang songs in front of saloons on the for a few pennies. To try to maximize his earnings he studied what made songs popular.

6 Between the time that we see as a boy singing in front of saloons and his success as a song writer he was living in squalor on the Lower East Side. He was embarrassed that his sisters were earning more than he did. He would teach himself to play piano and worked at places like Tony Pastor's Music Hall in Union Square and the Pelham Café in Chinatown. He was a singing waiter for a time and made extra money signing “blue” (obscene) parodies of hit songs. Alexander’s Ragtime Band is derived in part from the earlier work of Scott Joplin and the success of that song would help revive interest in Joplin’s music. The influence that Black artists had on Jewish composers and performers is undeniable and continues to this day. British poet and author Rudyard Kipling said of the Lower East Side that despite conditions being worse than the slums of Bombay it could produce people like Irving Berlin “For these immigrant Jews are a race that survives and thrives against all odds and flags."

7 If there is any question as to the influence of African-American history and culture on the music being composed by Gershwin’s play should settle that. The play was first performed by a group of classically trained African-American singers in in 1935 before moving to Broadway. The casting was daring for its time and the play was a financial failure until its revival in 1976 by the Houston Grand Opera. The success of Gershwin, Berlin, Hammerstein, and others set the stage for generations of Jewish American songwriters.

8 This song was made famous by , but that isn’t the Jewish connection. It was neither written by nor for Elvis. The song was written by Jewish men – Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller – for the Blues artist Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton.

When Elvis Presley performed this song on America was aghast (Elvis could only be shown from the waist up because of those hips!) and also changed forever.

With this one record we see the transition in American music from the traditional blues to rock and roll. Two themes will persist – an interrelationship between Blacks and Jews shaping America’s musical tastes and controversy.

9 Anyone that listened to music in the , , or 1970s, heard songs that were written or recorded in the Brill building. Some of the hits were: "Yakety Yak" (Leiber-Stoller) "Save the Last Dance for Me" (Pomus-Shuman) "The Look of Love" (Bacharach-David), "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (Sedaka-Greenfield) "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" (Mann-Weil) "River Deep, Mountain High" (Spector-Greenwich-Barry).

Across Broadway from the Brill Building was the less-famous 1650 Broadway that also was also the home to writers and musicians as well as numerous record labels. You could make a living traveling between buildings.

10 The volume of songs composed by Pomus and Shuman and their influence is amazing. Pomus (Felder) could have been a successful blues singer. In 1955, he recorded Heartlessly and when the song was given airplay by Alan Freed it looked like his career was going to take off. And then the found out that he was 30 years old, that he was Jewish and needed crutches to get around. He was encouraged by , co-founder of , to become a writer. For the remainder of his life he would be a songwriter.

Beyond their own considerable contributions, the pair would influence the careers of may musicians ranging from blues singers such as Joe Turner to Elvis to and Doctor John.

11 These are the keys elements – Jews have always been “outsiders.” Never quite fitting in despite best efforts. Identifying with the music of Black Americans, particularly the Blues. Which is an accurate description of Rock and Rollers. As you will see, this influence spanned decades and generations of artists.

12 Phil Chess was born Fiszel Czyż in what was Poland then, is Belarus now. Along with his brother Leonard, sister Malka and mother and father, the family came to America in 1928, settling in Chicago. Fiszel became Phil.

After serving in WWII, the brothers opened a club, the Macomba Lounge. Two years later, Leonard became a partner in Aristocrat Records and brought Phil with him. Originally Aristocrat recorded a wide range of music. In 1950, the company changed it’s name to Chess Records and specializing in R&B music, being one of the very few labels that recorded the music of Black performers – Howlin’ Wolf, , Willie Dixon, “Sonny Boy Williamson”, , and .

It was because of an introduction from Muddy Waters that Phil stumbled upon a mix of R&B and Country and Western. Phil saw this fusion as having commercial possibilities. He insisted that the lyrics also be rewritten "The kids wanted the big beat, cars and young love," Chess recalled. "It was the trend and we jumped on it.”

And so Rock and Roll was born.

Anecdotally the song “Johnny B. Good” by is autobiographical. The original lyrics were “Where lived a colored buy named Johnny B. Goode” but were changed to “a

13 country boy” to assure airplay.

13 Leo Mintz owned a record store called Record Rendezvous that had recently begum selling records. Mintz told Freed that there had been an increase in interest in R&B among young whites. The promotion of this style of music was commercial, but also because Freed and Mintz liked the music. This would be the first time that authentic R&B (played by Black musicians) would be featured on a major, mass market station. In 1952, Freed is credited with promoting the first rock concert. Freed would name his show Moondog's Rock 'n' Roll Party. Freed literally made the name Rock and Roll into a household word. It was an extension of what he had been doing with R&B. What is ironic that term Freed was using to make rhythm and blues more acceptable to a white audience, was slang for sex in the black community.

In the 1956 film Rock, Rock, Rock, Freed says “rock and roll is a river of music which has absorbed many streams: rhythm and blues, jazz, ragtime, cowboy songs, country songs, folk songs. All have contributed greatly to the big beat.“

Freed was the first DJ to have a special relationship with his audience, In 1954, Freed was hired by a station in NYC and within months his show was #1. In 1957 ABC-TV gave Freed his own nationally-televised rock & roll show, but an episode on which Frankie Lymon danced with a white girl enraged ABC's Southern affiliates and the show was cancelled.

14 In 1958 he put on a show in Boston that resulted in Freed being charged with incitement to riot. In 1959 Freed would refuse to sign a statement confirming that he never took payola and that would end his career. He would face indictments for tax evasion over the next years and he would die in 1965 at the age of 43 a penniless and broken man.

14 was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota. His paternal grandparents, Zigman and Anna Zimmerman, came from Odessa in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) to the fleeing the pogroms of 1905.

Bob Dylan is credited with ushering in the era of the singer songwriter, ending the need for the professional songwriter. Dylan has been America’s voice of protest against injustice. “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A’Changin’’” were the anthems of the . “Like a ” redefined what a single song could convey and set the stage for artists like Springsteen. “All Along the Watchtower” drew inspiration for its lyrics from the Book of Isaiah and would be re-recorded by . And then we have his friendship with Johnnie Cash, who recorded “It Ain’t Me Babe.” When your music is covered by both Hendrix and Cash, you have had a career.

15 Paul Simon was born October 13, 1941 in Newark, NJ to Hungarian-Jewish parents. His moved to Queens in 1945. Art Garfunkel was born November 5, 1941 in Forest Hills, Queens, NYC to Romanian Jewish parents. He would meet Paul Simon when both were cast in a sixth grade play – Alice in Wonderland. As with a lot of groups, Simon and Garfunkel almost didn’t happen. From 1957 until 1965 they didn’t have much success and in fact broke up several times. Their first album only sold 3000 copies. It wasn’t until a Boston DJ started playing “The Sound of Silence” to a college audience that they had a breakthrough. Because of the success that Dylan had with “Like a Rolling Stone” CBS started to promote the song and the single sold a million copies. After that there was a rush to promote “Homeward Bound.” In 1969 their album Bookends and the soundtrack of The Graduate made them the biggest act in the world.

16 People are often surprised by how successful has been. In 1972 he played a one-man show that ran for 20 consecutive nights at ’s Wintergarden Theater. His remake of The Jazz Singer was a disaster, but it featured three Top 10 singles "Love on the Rocks", "Hello Again", and “America,” the last of which special significance for Diamond. "'America' was the story of my grandparents," he told an interviewer. "It's my gift to them, and it's very real for me ... In a way, it speaks to the immigrant in all of us.”

17 began writing songs for others – including 's "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" and ' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow“ but with Tapestry had breakthroughs with “It’s Too Late” and “I Feel The Earth Move.”

This album is credited with helping pave the way for other female singer/songwriters.

18 Rock and Roll has always been controversial. When Elvis was first on TV, they would only show him above the waist. (“Great Balls of Fire”) married his 13-year old cousin. Lou Reed embraced and thrived on controversy. Lou had a very unhappy early life. He claimed that the shock therapy he was given was part of his father’s efforts to deprogram him from his homosexuality, something his sister denies. Without question, Reed suffered from depression, possibly complicated by his drug abuse. The first album of (The Velvet Underground & Nico) is listed by Rolling Stone as the 13th greatest album of all time. It included songs about hard-core drug use (“Heroin” and “I’m Waiting for the Man”) and S&M (“Venus in Furs.”) It was also heavily art inspired and would influence a generation of musicians. In his later years, Lou Reed made numerous trips to Israel, as a performer and a Jewish tourist. He was a regular attendee and participant (always reading the Wise Child) and produced a film about his family’s flight from Poland. (“Red Shirley.”) The Forward published an article in 2017 about him entitled “Was Lou Reed A Lot More Jewish Than We Thought He Was?”

19 CBGB OMFUG stands for "Country, Blue Grass, Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers“ and was supposed to be a country music bar. Instead it became the starting point for the , , Television, Blondie, The Dead Boys and The Shirts.

Hilly Kristal would establish the venue and become the driving force behind a number of artists. Punk was less a particular style of music (Blondie, the Talking Heads, and the Dead Boys sound very different from each other) and more about a time and a place. A segment of young people, here and in , felt alienated by Reagan and Thatcher. Of course a large percentage of these young people were Jewish.

20 The Dictators were a bunch of Jewish boys from the Bronx and Queens. The name The Dictators was chosen as an insult to Nazis and, in case that was too subtle, the record included the song “Master Race Rock” – We're the members of the master race We don't judge you by your face First we check to see what you eat Then we bend down and smell your feet

21 In 1984, then President Reagan paid a visit to the cemetery in Bitburg, Germany. Among others buried there are members of the Waffen-SS. The visit was opposed by every American Jewish group, but Reagan went anyway. The Ramones put their feelings into song: You're a politician Don't become one of Hitler's children Bonzo goes to Bitburg then goes out for a cup of tea As I watched it on TV somehow it really bothered me Drank in all the bars in town for an extended foreign policy Pick up the pieces My brain is hanging upside down I need something to slow me down

22 Joey’s last album, Don’t Worry About Me, was released in 2002 after his death, and includes a cover of the Louis Armstrong song “What a Wonderful World.”

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