Chanukah Challah Fame

In honor of the last night of Chanukah, Mind Droppings is ushering the very first annual Chanukah Challah Fame. A yearly tribute to the often overlooked influence that jewish (and near-jewish) musicians have had on the world of music. In our seminal season we're beginning with some of the seeds and sprouts of American musical genres. While, folk and folk rock may seem archaic in these times of vocoded vocals and lycra-laden leading-ladies, compared the the flash and sizzle of scientology, Judaism is pretty old school too. 

Two giants in their field, Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie, and his musical progeny 

Robert Allen Zimmerman (Hebrew name, Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham) have made indelible marks on the nations musical consciousness. Although these two troubadours of the Torah never fully embraced a hebrew heritage while in the limelight, their achievements prove that musicians too can make their mothers proud, right along side their doctor and lawyers siblings.

To begin at the beginning, the birthplace of Guthrie's Jewish songwriting was Brooklyn in the 1940's. The period was a renaissance for Jewish culture. While Woody was likely agnostic, he was adrift in a climate where Judaica mingled freely with all brands of art and activism, and he soon found a muse in of all places, his Jewish mother-in-law. Aliza Greenblatt, a well known Yiddish poet, shared passion for social justice with Woody and the two quickly set about writing songs. The defiance and pride she helped instill in Guthrie's music is best described by Woody himself...

"I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing.

Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling.

I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built.

I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work."

  

The man's blood may not have ran thick with chicken soup but he had a pair of matzo balls like you've never seen; and although the majority of his songs decry the plights of the downtrodden, Woody was anything but morose. In one of his rare Judaic recordings, Guthrie's style reverberates. A spoonful of tradition washed down with healthy dose of mirth. I give you, Woody Guthrie's two-part suite, "Hanukkah Dance".

Hanukkah Dance-Woody Guthrie

Our second inductee owes much of his success to our first, however, Bob Dylan never fails to outshine his predecessor. Some might contest Dylan's induction seeing as he's a bit of a faith-flip-flopper, with that whole born-again business. One look at the cover of 1985's "Empire Burlesque"

shows that no one ought be held accountable for their actions during that decade. More importantly, the fact that in the last 20 years both of his sons have had Bar Mitzvahs should be enough to 

outweigh his recently released holiday album, Christmas in the Heart. The goyish blonde wig he sports in the video for the polka infused single, "It Must Be Santa" could be a tip off that it's all done tongue in cheek, so our judges let it slide. In an attempt to bring him back to the bema, Mind Dropping presents a quirky cut from The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 entitled "Talkin' Hava Negilah Blues."

Talkin' Hava Negilah Blues-Bob Dylan 

The final yodel perhaps a sign the song was written in subtle mockery of the budding phoniness Dylan saw in the era's Jewish folk scene, whose integrity was slowly giving way. Nonetheless, the song remains today a dusty relic of one of Dylan's first social indictments. I may seem strange to hear a member of the tribe turning his sword, or in this case his pen on his own; but once again, there's no one better than Dylan himself to enlighten us on his fickle relationship with religion ...

"Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else ... I don't adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. I've learned more from the songs than I've learned from any of this kind of entity. The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs" 

Poetic as always, Dylan now finds his faith in his craft. Who's to say that we should hold it against him if he happens to find it in equally gravelly and enigmatic renditions of "O Little Town of Bethlehem?" Certainly not the staff here at Mind Droppings, we'll still love Mr. Zimmerman whether he has a red stocking cap or a yarmulke atop his head. 

Thus we arrive at the close of the first annual Mind Droppings Chanukah Challah Fame. With that, we raise the Manischewitz to our new inductees for a final L' Chaim!