Wandering around Jewish music

1- Bob Dylan.
Dylan’s career, which started during his high school years in the mid-1950s, gained momentum from 1961 when he began to emerge as a ‘folk singer’ in the New York district of Greenwich Village. Bob Dylan appeared to particularly excel in writing song lyrics, initially in the genre of the protest song. The civil rights movement soon annexed his song Blowin’ in the Wind (1962). Not much later, millions of young people embraced his The Times They Are a-Changin’ (1964). Both songs are examples of Dylan’s ability to keep the lyrics abstract in such a way that the song gains general expressiveness. That was just the beginning of a career that brought him world fame.
CD. Top 40 Bob Dylan: His ultimate top 40 Collection – Bob Dylan.
Label: Sony (2019), code: 190759911624. Video
Playlist: Blowing in the Wind + The Times They Are a-Changin.

2- Simon & Garfunkel.
An American singing duo consisting of Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel from the Queens district of New York. They first performed under the name Tom & Jerry in the second half of the 1950s and since the 1960s as Simon & Garfunkel. They split up in 1970 and have since reunited sporadically for one-off concerts or tours. In 1975, Simon & Garfunkel worked together again for the first time since 1970 on the song My Little Town, which appeared that year on Simon’s album Still Crazy After All These Years and on Garfunkel’s album Breakaway, but there was no real reunion.
CD. The Simon & Garfunkel Collection.
Label: CBS Records (1983), code: CD 24005. Video
Playlist: Homeward Bound + The Sound of Silence.

3- Billy Joel.
William Martin Joel (The Bronx, New York) is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. In the 1960s, Billy Joel had done some session work before releasing his first record in 1971. Between 1972 and his retirement in 1993 he produced pop music hits, including Piano Man and Goodnight Saigon. He then continued to perform, in addition to writing and recording classical music. With this album he established his name as a good singer and an equally good songwriter. Joel sold around 100 million records worldwide.
CD. Greatest hits; vol.1 & 2 – Billy Joel.
Label: Columbia Records (1985), code: 4911912. Video
Playlist: I Take You Just the Way You Are + Honesty.

4- Randy Newman.
Randall Stuart (Randy) Newman (Los Angeles), is an American composer and singer. He has released eleven studio albums since 1968. He also wrote several soundtracks for films. Randy Newman’s songs don’t need much to make an impression. His orchestral debut in 1968, Randy Newman Creates Something New Under The Sun, was not an immediate sales success, but the album’s songs were recorded by various artists within a short time. With his next album, 12 Songs (1970), Newman received widespread praise. During the 1970s he made several albums, including Sail Away, Good Old Boys and Little Criminals.
CD. Sail Away – Randy Newman.
Label: Reprise Records (2002), code: 8122-782442. Video
Playlist: Sail Away + You Can Leave You Had On.

5- Lou Reed.
After a half-hearted solo debut, Lou Reed’s post-Velvet Underground years threatened to look bad. Thank goodness that David Bowie and his guitarist Mick Ronson came to the rescue, creating one of Lou Reed’s best albums of his career. Transformer (1972) built on the stripped-down, whimsical pop sound of his previous album, injecting the androgynous and brazen glitz of the glam period. The sense of stylish fun on Transformer is infectious, and is heightened by Reed’s character sketches of Andy Warhol’s entourage and New York’s socialites.
CD. Transformer – Lou Reed.
Label: RCA Records (1983), code: ND 83806. Video
Playlist: Just A Perfect Day + Walk On The Wild Side.

6- Michel Berger.
Stage name of Michel-Jean Hamburger, was a French singer and songwriter, whose parents were from Poland. He is best known as a lyricist for his wife, the French singer France Gall. In the 1970s and 1980s he was one of the most popular French singers. He wrote the music for the French musical Starmania, which has been performed with great success in France since 1979. Michel Berger died at the age of 44 from a heart attack during a game of tennis. He is buried in the Montmartre cemetery in Paris.
CD. Les plus belles chansons – Michel Berger.
Label: WEA (1995), code: 4509957 822. Video
Playlist: Ecoute la musique + Quelques mots d’amour.

7- Jean-Jacques Goldman.
A French retired singer-songwriter and producer whose work remains extremely popular in the French-speaking world. Since Johnny Hallyday’s death in 2017, he has been the highest-grossing living French ‘pop-rock act’. Born in Paris and active in the music scene from 1975, he had a very successful solo career in the 1980s. Goldman was a founding member of the charity collective Les Enfoirés in 1986 and has also written successful albums and songs for many artists, including D’eux for Céline Dion, the most successful French-language record to date.
CD. Singulier: 1981-’89 – Jean-Jacques Goldman.
Label: Columbia Records (1996), code: 4850082. Video
Playlist: Envole moi + Encore un matin.

8- Johnny Clegg.
Born in England in 1953, to an English father and a Zimbabwean mother, he grew up in his mother’s native country, Zimbabwe. Johnny Clegg is a singer, songwriter, dancer, anthropologist and musical activist with a vibrant blend of Western pop and African Zulu rhythms. In France, where he enjoys a huge following, he is affectionately known as The White Zulu. Johnny Clegg has wowed audiences with his daring live shows and has won a number of national and international awards for his music and for his outspoken views on apartheid, his views on migrant workers in South Africa and the general situation in the world today.
CD. The very best of – Johnny Clegg & Savuka.
Label: EMI (1997), code: 8575762. Video
Playlist: One Man One Vote.

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