The Cloudburst

UPDATE: It was September 2005 when I originally posted this song about the Great Flood of 1916 which wiped out Asheville and surrounding areas. I'd forgotten about it until this past week, when Hurricane Helene flooded and destroyed the same area.

 

It was a firefighter, Dave Baumgartner, who made this song. He was on the 1916 search and recovery team and was the one who found Lewis and Jennie dead in the mud. The song was remembered by and collected from a woman in Ebenezer, North Carolina in the 1930s. (The sprawl of Raleigh long since rolled over Ebenezer - it doesn't exist any more.)

 

About a quarter century ago I used to sing this with Robbie Link playing cello. Now I only have my 70 year old voice to sing it with. 

 

Read more about The great flood of 1916

 

The Cloudburst

In the month of July in the year of '16
The worst tropical storm that ever was seen
Made its way from the ocean wide
And struck with force on the mountain side

At the head of Jack Branch there was children five,
A mother, and father, and all alive.
They stood in the door and the rain came down,
They saw how swiftly it covered the ground.

The pleading words of little Perry was heard:
"Together to the pines let us go," he said,
But the words of that boy had scarcely been spoken
When the windows of heaven was thrown wide open.

The downpour came in a terrible row.
It struck the house, they were thrown to the flow.
A poor little babe in a cradle at rest
The mother picked up and held to her breast.

Down in an old house that Wilson built
There Lolas and Lilly and the children knelt
Says Wilson to Lolas and to Lilly too:
"Are your children all saved? I only see two."

"Oh, no," says they, "we fear they have drowned,
They've not been seen since the house went down."
Down in a bottom near the Sinclair pond
The bodies of Lewis and Jenny was found.

But poor little Perry has never been found
He lies somewhere below the ground
In a bed of mud and a pillar of clay,
He may not be found till the last Great Day
When the angels come, and the trumpets sound
To wake the dead that's below the ground.

Animated music video: "What a Shocking World This Is for Scandal" (I Never Says Nothing to Nobody)

Sixteen years ago Bob Vasile and I recorded a Pratie Heads cd called "We Did It! Songs of people behaving badly."

We got the idea from Clarke Thacher, head of the local folk song society, who said every proper British Isles traditional band should have a collection of murder ballads. We expanded the remit to include the other seven deadly sins and this was the opening song, as true today as it was back then. I found it decades ago in a tiny folk song collection, the collector averred it was written in 1818. Now, sixteen years later, I've made an animated music video for it.

That was long before the internet. Now I can look it up and see it's usually called "I Never Says Nothing to Nobody," and that it was first published in 1826. And further, that Thomas Hudson himself performed it in "the singing taverns and supper clubs that influenced early Music Hall." And yet further, that Hudson published 13 collections between 1818 and 1832. I'm going to see if there are other delights within. Supposedly the tune was heard from Henry King in Hampshire in 1906 by the collector George Gardiner.

What a Shocking World This Is for Scandal What a shocking world this is for scandal The people get worse ev'ry day, when ev'rything serves for a handle To take folks' good names away. In backbiting vile each so labors The sad faults of others to show body I could tell such a tale if I liked But I never says nothing to nobody, fallerollolliday. The butcher, so greasy and fat, When out, he does nothing but boast He struts as he cocks on his hat As if he supreme ruled the roast Of his wealth and his riches he'll prate Determined to seem such a fine body He's been pulled up three times for short weight But I never says nothing to nobody, fallerollolliday. Tis a snug little house I reside in And the people who're living next door Are smothered completely such pride in As I never have met with before But outside their door they don't roam A large sum of money they owe body When folks call they can't find them at home But I never says nothing to nobody, fallerollolliday. The publican, thriving in trade With sorrow is now looking down His sweet little pretty barmaid Has a little one just brought to town He's not to be seen much about His wife is a deuce of a shrew body The gossips are on the lookout But I never says nothing to nobody, fallerollolliday. The new married couple, so happy, Seem quite the quintessence of love He calls her, before every chappy, "My darling," "My Duck," and "My Dove." In private there's nothing but strife Quarrelling, fighting o'erflow body In short, quite a cat and dog life But I never says nothing to nobody, fallerollolliday. I could tell if I liked such a tale Of neighbors all round, great and small That surely, I think, without fail, Would really astonish you all. But here now my short ditty ends As I don't want to hurt high or low body I wish to stay in with my friends So I never says nothing to nobody, fallerollolliday.

Animated music videos for Yiddish theater songs?

I found these tiny books of cabarat songs from Warsaw: the author, Itzik Zhelonek, said they were famous and popular and the latest thing. I was surprised and then saddened that most of them had disappeared from the world almost entirely and decided to find their melodies and bring them back.

A stupid, time-consuming, expensive project but it's engaged me wholly for more than a year now. After I got my friend Randy to come up from Florida and sing some of the songs with me, I made a digital-only cd called In Odess: Yiddish Songs from Warsaw (see below) with him and with the help of Aviva Enoch and Roger Lynn Spears and Ken Bloom we put out 18 of the songs. I'm also selling sheet music for these songs.

Then I thought I would like to do some animated music videos, but I didn't know how, so I took a couple lessons ... this is the first. (I did some cartoon music videos for the cd Mrs. Maccabee's Kitchen: new Hanukah songs in 2012, but I used the Youtube's GoAnimate rather than starting from scratch.)

There's hardly any point singing in Yiddish if you don't provide captions. The Cabaret Warsaw project proved that if you let people see the translation of your song line by line, they'll laugh at the jokes.

Here's the whole "In Odess" cd. You can buy it for the cost of a taco lunch at the food truck.

Buy an advance ticket to the Pratie Heads St. Patrick's Day concert, get a free brand-new mp3 download.

30 years since our first Pratie Heads concert in 1982. We've been playing in the Raleigh Durham area ever since...

We've hired the hall (the Shared Visions Retreat Center aka Murphey School) at the intersection of Murphy School Road and old NC 10 -- an adorable old-fashioned auditorium with plenty of parking! It's sort of between Chapel Hill, Hillsborough, and Durham. Not far away, I promise!

We've arranged for delicious treats for the intermission (served by my mentee to benefit the Blue Ribbon Mentor Advocate Program).

We are giving away FREE CDs at the door to all attendees! What more could you ask?

Well, in honor of the new order, we recorded a song this morning and will send it as a free mp3 to anybody who buys advance tickets to our concert at the Pratie Heads website. This is a song I put together with an adaptation of a 17th century melody, a brand-new harmony, and the Tudor-era broadside witheringly entitled "Cordial Advice against the wiles of the sea, addressed To all rash young Men, who think to Advance their decaying Fortunes by Navigation."

You also save $2 if you buy online - the tickets are $8 on the website and $10 at the door. That's because advance ticket sales make me hopeful we will cover the cost of the hall.

Thirty years. That's pretty good, don't you think? And we're still steaming along. Come if you can. 7:30 pm on Saturday, March 17. Be there or be square.

Vegan Fight Song (This Ae Nicht)

I'm thinking of moving my whole Skylark Productions album collection over to Bandcamp.com because the site is such a pleasure to use. However, it remains to be seen if it's as good for the viewer (potential buyer) as it is for me, the installer of music.

Here's part of my trip down memory lane: Lisa Pickel (one of the wonderful singers in the Solstice Assembly, a vocal ensemble I directed in the late 1980s and into the 1990s) wrote this parody of the fine Young Tradition song "This Ae Nicht." Since my son is currently starving himself on some even stricter variety of a vegan diet, this one is for him. Our rendition is a little out of tune, but very enthusiastic! If you click on into the site, you'll see a lot of our music. Let me know how it works for you.

Routenote Direct: musicians, have you tried it?

If you click on that little arrow, you will hear songs from the cd Beth Holmgren and Jane Peppler (me) did in 1991 when she still lived in San Diego and we didn't know if we'd ever live close enough to have tea together. Routenote Direct is an interesting way to bypass itunes and Amazon - you can buy tracks directly from their site. If you give it a try, please let me know what you think. Thanks!

Pratie Heads 30-year anniversary St Patrick's Day concert: March 17, 2012

Bob Vasile and I gave our first concert together March 17, 1982. I don't know how much longer we'll be doing this - you never know - so come to our anniversary concert if you're in the area! Saturday, March 17, 2012, at 7:30 pm so you have time to go out carousing afterwards.

We're holding it at the Shared Visions Retreat Center 3717 Murphy School Road, Durham NC, where we taught at Danny Gotham's PicknBow folk music weekend this past summer. The weekend was a blast and we really enjoyed playing in the old-fashioned, newly refurbished auditorium in the school Jay Miller bought and brought back to life.

Tickets are $8 in advance via PayPal or $10 at the door. We will probably give away some free cds.

Nu, a daygeh? from Cabaret Warsaw

Peysach Burstein sang this song first - he called himself, among other things, a "coupletist" - meaning he sang comical songs with extemporized rhyming verses. Sometimes couplets were topical, about issues of the time (like a Jay Leno monologue, maybe).

It's hard to translate this refrain. I used several different possibilities in the captions. Maybe Alfred E. Neuman's "What, me worry?" would be best.

OK, one more: "Sex Appeal," from Mappamundi's upcoming cd...

This was one of the first songs I fell for in our Warsaw Cabaret project. Above, us playing it in public for the first time (way too fast I guess)...

Below: it was a hit in the 1930s both in its original Polish-language version, performed here in the 1937 movie "Piętro wyżej" (Upstairs) by Eugeniusz Bodo, a big Polish movie star, in drag, playing Mae West...


and by Menashe Oppenheim, who sang it in Yiddish.

My band Mappamundi begins recording "Cabaret Warsaw" next week.

It was last summer my friend Beth, chair of the Slavic languages department at Duke University and my singing partner since the 1970s, suggested we make a cd with our world music band Mappamundi of music played in Warsaw cabarets and kleynkunst theaters between the world wars, when many of the composers, lyricists, and performers were Jews, some assimilated and working in Polish language in nightclubs like Qui Pro Quo, others developing a Yiddish-language equivalent in little hole-in-the-wall experimental theaters like Azazel.

It's no easy thing, creating a whole repertoire from scratch. To give it some focus, we decided to have a try-out concert at Beth's house in the fall and that's when my friend Paul Deblinger shot this video. You can see more of the songs at our youtube channel. We also spent hours preparing captions which Beth's husband projected on the wall over our heads so people would get the jokes...

Next weekend we'll go into the Rubber Room and try to record at least the rhythm tracks for the cd we'll be calling "Cabaret Warsaw: Yiddish and Polish hits of the 1930s."

Report on large-screen e-readers or tablet computers for reading sheet music from a music stand. Grrrrr.

A few months ago I saw an article about the Borromeo String Quartet reading from their laptop computers onstage. The setup seemed awfully unwieldy - but! Happy the musician who can mash a foot pedal to turn a page instead of having to snake a hand to whip it across (not easy when you're holding a bow).

The players above have their laptops horizontal - that allows for easier navigation and larger display size, but only shows half a page at a time.

Some musicians turn their laptops sideways and use vertical format, in which case a whole page displays but the keyboard is hard to use! Here is an expensive velcro gizmo you can buy to keep your computer from falling off the music stand. An ugly solution.


... and if you don't want the laptop computer to go crashing to the floor, you might want to invest in this $199.99 heavy duty music stand...

---

Last week I tried a laptop balanced precariously on a music stand. In some ways it was wonderful - since all our music is in Sibelius files organized by folders and alphabetically, any piece could be found instantly, forestalling tedious minutes of flipping through piles. But I was afraid the computer would fall over. Not having a $200 music stand, I thought instead I might invest the money in a big tablet computer or e-reader instead.

However, "big" these days seems to mean a 9.7" or 10.1" screen (measured on the diagonal). A regular size piece of paper, 8-1/2" x 11", is 15.5" diagonal, considerably larger.

Here's a picture of pianist Sam Haywood playing from an iPad (9.7") using a bluetooth foot pedal. Fine for a pianist, who sits close to the music, but too small for the violinist, who's using paper music.

I looked at a friend's iPod - at 9.7" diagonal, fine for him to read music from his lap (he is a vocalist) but way too small for me. Then I tried a tablet computer with a 10.1" diagonal - still too small, especially for two people sharing a stand.

---

In case your eyes are better than mine, or if you're a pianist, you may have considered the Amazon Kindle DX as an alternative to the iPad; it's available now (mid-December 2011) for $379.00. It weighs slightly over a pound and is 9.7" diagonally, same size as the iPad. There are more than 3,500 reviews. Common complaints:

• Fragility - quite a few say the protective case sold with the unit will itself crack the screen! Also, the tiny tiny keyboard was deemed by many to be the worst ever.
  
  "The frame/screen is just not strong enough to support its own weight without the customer holding it with two hands or in the center."
  
  
• Evidently the device itself, software development, and support, are being phased out completely.
  
  "It seems they want to just be done with the DX with no plans for a new version."
  
  "Why do they still sell it to me for that high price if it is abandoned ?"
  
  "Now, for the biggest problem I have with this device: it is apparently no longer being supported. There have been several updates for the 6" third-generation models, but nothing of note for the DX. The rumour was that this is due in part to the fact that the DX has half as much RAM as its 6" counterparts."
  
  
• You can't organize your files in folders and you can't organize them alphabetically.
  
  "Amazon, what are you thinking? We had folders on our PCs and MACs back in the 80's, more than TWENTY years ago."
  
  "Still no folders. An organization nightmare three times bigger than that of the K2 (which itself had increased the same problem on the K1): the possibility of storing 3500 books but only being able to sort them by author, title, and most recent first. ... you can organize your books by genre or whatever you like, so that's a big help. However, for some strange reason, unless you resort to fixes like putting symbols before the collection names when in "view by collections" it is impossible to alphabetize them."
  
  
• Can't turn off sleep mode.
  
  "If you are using the Kindle to display a textbook you may have it on a page that contains problems you must solve, and if it takes you longer than 10 minutes the Kindle goes into sleep mode. It would be rather annoying to have to wake it up to do each problem."
  
  
• E-ink, while praised by most, would not work for us when we perform in dimly-lit venues.
  
  "Surprise! The screen is too dim to be functional. It is ... impossible to read in the dark."
  
  "Apparently previous versions you could adjust the brightness but not on the newest one. I'm guessing they wanted to increase battery life. Not much point if you can't use it."
  
  
• Wonky behavior
  
  "The DX often restarted by itself. I would in the middle of some book and the DX would completely reset itself. Resetting a DK can take uo to 10 minutes or more. The pages also did not advance quickly."
  
  "The screen periodically locks up and requires a reset. Recently the screen locked and resetting it did not work. The Kindle was 20 days out of warranty when this happened. When I contacted Amazon, they walked me through their "advanced trouble shooting" procedures. This involved pushing and holding the power switch for 20 seconds. When that didn't work they told me that was the extent of trouble shooting."

---

Next I looked at the Freehand Systems MusicPad Pro Plus, originally $1,199.00, then $859.00, now $500. It's the right size - at 13.3" x 9.9" it probably displays the music full-sized - but it's two inches thick and weighs over four pounds! Reviewers wrote:

"I love the concept, but hate the execution... I have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and I'm somwhat of a computer geek and gadget freak, so my tolerance is pretty high for things that are not idiot proof... in converting all of my Word files to the proprietary .fh files, I had to open and print each of my document via the freehand printer driver, then re-name each file and add my tags. ... Freehand should be ashamed to put this on the market without some way to batch convert ... with a measly 35 Megs of usable internal memory ... less than 1/2 of my songs fit on the internal memory..."

"Since I have purchased the MusicPad Pro the company has all but totally abandoned the product. Without any warning they turned off the forum ... there is absolutely NO support nor ongoing development for this product.... The system has been left to run its course, sell as many existing systems as they can, and let it die."

"Their customer service response when I asked about it was: 'I am really sorry, but we no longer service the MPP.' ."

"Since day 1 the battery would not hold a charge for more than 30 minutes. I sent it back to Freehand and they supposedly replaced it but the second battery did exactly the same thing."

"The software kept crashing, the printer drivers did not install. The software, when it it did run, is extremely lagging and outdated. ... When I told [the service rep] it was crashing every time I tried to open the software, he said, 'Then just return it,' and hung up!"

---

So both of those devices are being phased out. So where are the NEW large-format readers? I saw two that looked wonderful, however...

1. In June of last year, geek.com reported that the Plastic Logic Que E-Reader was probably being killed; its purchasers received an email saying "We need to let you know that since your unit will not ship on June 24 as planned, our automated ordering system has automatically canceled your order."

"Billed as an e-reader for business users, the Que had an 8.5 x 11-inch touchscreen display and the ability to handle Microsoft Word files, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, digital books, PDFs, magazines and newspapers. The device could also synchronize with Microsoft Outlook to display e-mails and calendar." Wow, finally a full-sized display. The unit was going to be $650 ($800 with Wi-Fi and 3G).
A month later Plastic Logic announced: "We recognize the market has dramatically changed ... it no longer makes sense for us to move forward with our first-generation electronic reading product,"

Now, according to geek.com, the unit has been reformulated. The newer version, Plastic Logic 100 eReader, will be only 10.7" diagonal, still too small for me. It supposedly "pushes" 960 x 1280 pixels, has a touch screen and 4GB of storage, is less than 8mm thick and weighs about one pound. "The Plastic Logic e-Reader has been many years in development and might finally see the light of day this November. It was originally slated to only cost 12,000 rubles (around $400) but has dramatically increased to almost 25,000." $800?!!

---

If only it existed, the Skiff Reader would have been what I wanted! In January 2010, it was widely lauded: "...a quarter inch thick, it packs a 1600 x 1200 11.5-inch touchscreen (finger and stylus) that, as you can see from the above screenshot, should do much better justice to magazine and newspaper layouts than we've yet seen from an e-ink-based reader. ... Skiff includes ... just over 3GB for content, with SD card expansion, and there's a 3.5mm headphone jack for tunes and, hopefully, text-to-speech. Content can be side-loaded over a mini USB jack or delivered via WiFi but, more importantly, 3G is also on offer thanks to Sprint."

However, a few months later techcrunch.com reported: "The Skiff newsreader that made waves at last CES is dead, abandoned by News Corp. who bought the e-reader software but not the device from Hearst. ... Outsized, ugly and backed by Hearst and Sprint, it was a project doomed to failure ... Listen: the US belongs to iPad."

I note that the skiffreader website is for sale. That seems pretty definitive.

---

Though I realize this is the ultimate First World Problem, it still annoys me. Technologizer.com was wrong when it opined: "Plastic Logic and Skiff both set out to make much more powerful readers than the Kindle, which turned out to be a fatally flawed strategy: An e-reader that’s much fancier and pricier than a Kindle starts to look like an unsatisfactory iPad competitor." There IS a market for a larger screen, surely not only among musicians and the visually impaired!

PicknBow folkmusic retreat weekend in Durham NC: The Pratie Heads will be teaching at a summer folk music workshop retreat in Durham, June 24-26 2011

I don't know if any of you are local enough to take this in, but my musical partner Bob Vasile and I are going to be part of a music school weekend June 24-26, 2011. I'll be teaching singing and fiddle; Bob will be teaching open-tuning on the guitar and bouzouki/cittern/mandolin lessons. Danny will be teaching guitar, ukelele, and more...

Here are the details: PicknBow folksong and folkmusic summer workshops. PicknBow weekend is Danny Gotham's idea: he thought there should be an economical local opportunity for singers and guitarists (ukelele and bouzouki and fiddle... players) to spend a weekend making music!

To register, call Danny at (919)967.4934 or e-mail him at steelstringer@gmail.com.

There will be classes and jams and meals together and informal singing circles and performances starting Friday evening June 24 and ending late afternoon on Sunday.



There'll be classes geared to beginning players, players who want to experiment with open-tuning on their guitars, classes for people who play but are scared to sing, classes in harmony singing and "Songs for Non-Singers." And more. The singers and the instrumentalists will learn some songs together, jeez, it can be like Beethoven's seventh symphony!

I'm looking forward to working in the newly refurbished Murphey School, Durham NC, which is just a couple miles from my house. It's a lovely old space that's been redone with AIR-CONDITIONING.

You can download the brochure: Summer music workshop, PicknBow, Durham NC

Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas concert, Chapel Hill

I rarely go to live events but this one was too good to pass up. Alasdair Fraser is an amazing fiddler. I have his first album, made almost 30 years ago, with just him in that highland getup in an oval cameo on the cover, accompanied by what I identified at the time (being more of a snob back then) as a fairly cheesy ceilidh-style backup band.

He's made thirteen more recordings since then, with various partners. I loved his work with pianist Paul Machlis and treasure their recordings Skyedance and The Road North. Other pairings left me kind of cold - old-time guitarist and stickler Jody Stecher didn't do much for me backing Fraser ...

... but Natalie Haas is a goddess.

Fraser told the packed audience last night he first met Natalie when she was 11, at one of his Valley of the Moon fiddle camps. He made his first album with her in 2004 and they tour together a great deal.

Haas - a Juillard graduate who's toured with Mark O'Connor, and with fellow goddess, fiddler Natalie MacMaster, and who teachers at the Berklee School of Music - sparkled and glowed last night, young and gorgeous and strong, sitting on her throne in center stage. I loved her throne, a raised platform with a raised piano bench on it, bringing her head closer to the level of Fraser's. She couldn't speak a word (no mic) but Fraser, who had no lack of things to say (he's a good storyteller) communicated with her delightedly as he fiddled round the throne. He had a wireless mic and she plugged in from below so there were no mic stands in the way, what a great use of technology!

This detail from a 1780 David Allan painting called Highland Wedding at Blair Atholl was presented to me in the 1980s by my beloved mentor, Royal Scottish Country Dancemaster Carl Wittman, when I was first playing for him. He loved a period sound for his dances and hated ceilidh bands (think "rollicking" and you know what that word, pronounced K-lee, implies). This picture was his proof that Scottish reels and jigs and strathspeys do NOT need the involvement of an accordion.

Once in a while I've had the opportunity to fiddle with a cellist. The great thing is: the bows. Speaking together, conversing in the ancient and magical language of bows, breathing and scraping and wailing together the way only bows can. Bows are way cool.

Fraser asked us rhetorically last night: "Scraping hair from a horse's tail across cat guts - who ever thought that one up?" Fraser and Haas are both black-belt-masters of the bow - they can sound like half of the world's most wonderful string quartet as they suddenly draw down from wildness to silence. They decelerate their bows in perfect tandem and then milk the silence - wait for it, wait for it... - the audience is still as stone, we hold our breath together, drinking it that bold momentary silence.

I should also mention they have wonderful instruments and that the sound in the Community Church of Chapel Hill concert, co-sponsored by Pinecone, the Piedmont Council of Traditional Music was magnificent. The church used to have dreadful acoustics but they've done something marvellous to it and now it would be a wonderful place to hold a chamber music concert series.

The applause all night was deafening and we jumped to our feet to give them a standing ovation when they were finished. They dallied coming back to us - wait for it, wait for it - then loped back on stage and finished with some reels with the help of their opening act The Shamrockers. Fraser even got his sedentary audience on their feet and tried to teach the rapturous crowd to dance. There were plenty of country dancers and cloggers among us and as the musicians played the night down there were great dancers, young and old(ish), at the front of the hall and even on stage. Wonderful!

"I Can't Complain (But Sometimes I Still Do) got a huge review in the Yiddish Forward!!

My Yiddish teacher, Sheva Zucker, gave me this copy of Itsik Gottesman's review of the cd Aviva Enoch and I just made. He is editor of the Jewish Forverts.

Here's what he wrote:

From the town of Chapel Hill in the state of North Carolina we have received a cd of Yiddish songs with the charming name, "I Can't Complain - but sometimes I still do" (Ikh darf zikh nisht baklogn, ober baklog zikh fundestvegn). Jane Peppler sings and plays fiddle and Aviva Enoch plays piano. Chapel Hill is more known as the home of the University of North Carolina, and the state of North Carolina is a center of traditional American music - but it's no longer a surprise to hear a Yiddish word from there. It's been taught for years at the university, and the annual "Charlotte Yiddish Institute" has become an important undertaking in the Yiddish culture calendar.

Jane Peppler began to sing Yiddish songs in 1979. She directed the Triangle Jewish Chorale for 14 years. Before that, she participated in the Slavic chorus at Yale University and also played violin in the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Yale School of Music. She is interested in folk music from around the world and is now a musician in "Mappamundi," a group which plays international folk music.

Peppler studies Yiddish with Dr. Sheva Zucker and has already translated a number of stories and Jacob Dineson's classic novel "Yosele." She learned some of the songs on the compact disc at KlezKamp, which takes place in the Catskill Mountains every December, in the Vocal Master Classes with the teachers Zalmen Mlotek and Adrienne Cooper.

The recording's greatest virtues are the selection of songs and the well-tailored folkish arrangements. We liked that the duo presented songs from various genres: songs which are rarely sung and even more rarely recorded. But information about the songs, lyricists and composers is lacking in the recording's liner notes, and even on the website.

This is the first time we have heard the songs "Zing, Brider, Zing" (Sing, brothers, sing) and "Birobidzhan." The melody for "Birobidzhan" is utterly beautiful and the piano and fiddle twine in and out, creating a noble spirit. The usual songs about Birobidzhan are faster and more jolly, but this song, full of hope for tomorrow, has a completely different sentiment.

Itsik Fefer's song "Di Elter" (Old Age) was also new to us - we knew it only with the melody Chava Alberstein created and recorded with the Klezmatics on the recording "The Well."

Peppler composed a fine original melody for the folk song "Hob Ikh Mir a Mantl" (I Have a Coat) and added a new verse to the song "Gris, Bagris" (Greet, greet) which Lazar Veyner and Leybush Lerer created for Camp Boyberik in the 1920s. She learned the song from Zalmen Mlotek at KlezKamp. Another original composition is "Hilda's Waltz" by the pianist Aviva Enoch - it's the only instrumental piece on the compact disc.

They learned "Don un Donye" (verses by H. Royzenblat, music by Mikhl Gelbart) from the songbook "Pearls of Yiddish Song" by Hannah and Yosl Mlotek. Jane Peppler clearly loves folksongs or art songs like "Don un Donye" which have a folklike character. The duo doesn't, however, avoid theater songs - like Molly Picon's "A Bisl Libe" (A Little Love) by Josef Rumshinski, which comes from the theater production "Tsipke" of 1924. The Milkin Archive contains the song in its collection, sung by a singer with a strong voice and an orchestral accompaniment. Peppler's simpler version also has charm.

The comic folksong "Fraytig oyf der nakht" (Friday night) was very popular in the "old country" and it's a pleasure to hear it with Enokh's piano accompaniment. Peppler's voice rushes a bit too quickly here; her voice is not strong or trained enough for this tempo. It would be better sung more slowly and sweetly. In "Harbstlid" by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, she sings with heart, but also too quickly.

On the other hand, when one hears the prayer "Got fun Avrom", sung without accompaniment, and "Bobenyu," in which she sings more slowly, one feels clearly that the singer doesn't strain and she sings these songs as they should be sung.

The recording concludes with the theater song "Glik" (Luck), Fefer and Yampolski's "Yidishe Khasene" (Jewish wedding), and a Hebrew song, "Ta-am Haman."

Jane Peppler and Aviva Enoch have worked carefully on their arrangements, and the two musicians capably present the songs. One wants to hear them again.

Since the majority of compact discs these days emphasize klezmer music, and not Yiddish songs, it's wonderful to hear a recording like this, which expresses such love of the Yiddish word and song.

Click here to go to the Skylark Productions site and buy the album.

Aviva Enoch and Jane Peppler cd release and Hannukah party - concert November 21 at Temple Beth El in Durham

Jeez, I've been very busy lately and I want to write about it, but first I wanted to say, if you're around here please come to our concert. Hanukkah is very early this year. We'll have cds for sale, and also songbooks of various kinds, and a klezmer tunebook.

Freylach Time, a local klezmer band, will be joining us, and also Bob Vasile of the Pratie Heads.

Call 383-8952 for more info.

Hanukkah is early this year! Get your Mappamundi Klezmer Tunebook now!!

While I'm waiting for "I Can't Complain" to come back from the printer, I decided I was tired of having stacks of old klezmer tune charts around the house, because we never can find the right one when we need it. So I put ALL our favorite tunes, all the ones we play at weddings, festivals and concerts, into this book.

You can buy it, with a coil-binding so it opens nicely on a music stand, at lulu.com: The Mappamundi Klezmer Tunebook. I set the price as low as I could (12.90), coil binding is expensive. I can buy a large coke and a McDouble hamburger for what I make when you buy a book! But it would make me happy to have it out there. Great Hannukah present!

Pratie Heads at the rally for Pedro Perez Guzman, today 5pm in Raleigh

Bob Vasile and I are singing today at 5 pm in Moores Square in Raleigh at the rally for Pedro Perez Guzman, one of many people who have gotten stuck in a mire of conflicting immigration agencies, officials, and regulations, and who has now spent an entire year at a detention center in Lumpkin Georgia, away from his wife and young son.

You can read more about it here: Pedro's story. excerpt:

Pedro was only 8 years old when he entered the United States. Approximately 3 years ago, Pedro's mother went in to the immigration office for her permanent residency interview. Our biggest mistake, in hindsight, was not sending a lawyer with her. She is older and her memory is not great. In the interview, she made a mistake and was denied permanent residency.

Pedro was then sent a Notice to Appear in Court by immigration authorities ... they sent the Notice to Appear to the wrong address even though they had the correct address... when he did not appear to the court date, because he did not receive the order to appear in court, he was issued an order of deportation.

On Friday September 25, 2009, at 4am, there was a loud banging on the door and someone shouting, "Police! Open up!" ... Logan, our 3 year old son, was terrified and traumatized... [later] they handcuffed him and told us that they were from ICE and they would be detaining him because of an order of deportation... Pedro was able to give Logan one kiss and say goodbye.

Pedro was first detained in Wake County jail. After one day, he was transferred to Alamance County jail... for about a month... [and was] transferred to Georgia.

Six weeks later immigration authorities admitted their mistake (sending vital information to the wrong address) and agreed to reopen the case and stay his deportation temporarily until a final decision about the case.

On December 15, 2009, the judge stated that he did not believe that Pedro was eligible for relief under Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central Relief Act (NACARA), did not want to entertain Pedro’s case for immigration relief, and denied him bond. [later] our attorney showed me the statute in the immigration law that clearly stated that Pedro was eligible... The judge then proceeded to tell us that he still did not believe that Pedro was eligible for NACARA and that his final decision was to deport Pedro.

On May 9, 2010, the appeal for the final decision on Pedro’s eligibility to stay in the U.S. was filed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. We are waiting for the decision about the appeal of the final decision to deport Pedro.

Also read: humane alternatives to detention centers.

New Yiddish cd "I Can't Complain..."

"... but sometimes, I still do." It was lots of fun working with pianist Aviva Enoch. We recorded her piano tracks at Jerry Brown's Rubber Room, then I took the tracks home and edited them and sang my parts at home and then stuck everything on a flash drive and went back to the Rubber Room for mastering. (I am also entering this picture in Illustration Friday for this week's prompt, "Old Fashioned.") Click the picture to order or here: Yiddish songs cd I Can't Complain but sometimes I still do

The Durham Chapel Hill Complaints Choir

What a day!! Four performances and then a recording session. Hot, too. I'm going to lie down now.

This is what I packed in the car today, starting at upper left corner:
Extension cord
Power strip
Easel (for the sign)
Sign
Tripod (for movie camera)
Extra batteries
Recording mics and their special clips
Amp (the actual one we used was much bigger and already packed in the trunk)
M-audio breakout box
Laptop and charger
2 copies of the song in notebooks
Video camera and charger
Pitchpipe
Extra string
Duct tape (no musician ever goes anywhere without duct tape)
Mic cables
Performance mics and clips

Inner circle:
Cough medicine for allergies
Music glasses
Music stand
Clothespins (to keep music on the stand)
Headphones
XLR-to-quarter inch jack adapter

And a new edition of Three Log Night: Uncommon Music for the Holiday Season!

I still have a few of the old ones left, in the smaller format with the one-color cover, available for $6.95 plus shipping from Skylark Productions.

Earlier this week, though, I sent a beefed up new edition off to Create Space where it will be published on demand. More songs, larger format, re-scanned and prettier cover (as you see here).

I also sent off the master of the cd, "Three Log Night," which has most of the songs in the book, off to be duplicated professionally. For the past couple years I've been making them one by one as people order them and that's a hassle.

So - ready for your holiday shopping?

UPDATE: It's available now, for a mere $10.90, at The TJC Hanukah Songbook at Createspace.