Jewish music?

[Marvin <physchem...>]

I spent New Years eve with family at First Night in Ridgewood, NJ.  A highlight 
was two concerts by Oscar Brand, the noted singer, writer, and teacher of folk 
music.  We heard part of his first concert and all of the second - which wasn't 
a repeat of the first.  In the second, Brand talked about other folk song stars 
he knew, and one of his stories is repeated here because it should interest 
those on this maillist who want to define what music is authentically Jewish.

Brand talked a bit about Woody Guthrie.  He said that Guthrie married a Jew and 
they lived in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn.  Immersed in a Jewish 
culture, Guthrie took a lively folk melody from Louisiana and wrote new words 
to create a Chanukah song.  Brand sang the song, which I thought was OK - not 
great.  But there was nothing about it that identified it as the work of a 
non-Jew.

I don't think of a Christmas song by a Jew (e.g., White Christmas) as Jewish 
music.  Can't a Chanukah song by a non-Jew be Jewish music?

B.t.w., a later event we went to was a concert of "Jewish Folk Music" by Mark 
Levy.  He included songs that had no Jewish content, along with others that 
were definitely Jewish in origin and content.