Re: Jewish songwriters

[Eliott Kahn <Elkahn...>]

I'm stunned to find out Brian Wilson's mother was Jewish, but I shouldn't be 
too surprised. People of Jewish descent have clearly been the best American 
songwriters. We invented Tin Pan Alley. We invented the Broadway musical. We 
provided a large contribution to early Rock and Roll (Lieber/Stoller, 
Schuman/Pomus), and now one can safely say that of the most important 
songwriters for pop music of the sixties and seventies, four of them were of 
Jewish descent: Carole (Klein) King, Burt Bacharach, Bob Dylan, and Brian 
Wilson.

One might make the argument that these folks were not practicing Jews and made 
no contribution to "Jewish music" per se, and I would agree with them. But if 
one would accept being Jewish as a distinctive culture, which I do, then we 
have every reason to be proud of the enormous contributions that these 
songwriters and composers have made to American culture.

One only need think back on the old nineteenth century German adage that Jews 
are great interpreters but not creators of music and to see it for bigoted 
nonsense it really was.

Or one only need go to the opera and hear PORGY AND BESS.

Shabbat Shalom,

Eliott Kahn 


At 03:32 PM 11/14/02 -0500, you wrote:

>In a message dated 11/14/2 11:49:55 AM, lubet001 (at) umn(dot)edu writes:
>
><< I don't doubt you, but this is the first time I've encountered a reference 
>to
>Brian Wilson being Jewish.  Do you know him or have a published source.  
>Neither
>Great Jews in Music nor Jews Who Rock list the Wilson brothers.
> >>
>
>Their mother  is Jewish ..one of the Brothers, I believe it MIGHT be Carl 
>Wilson's kids go to one of the Jewish Schools here in LA...hey, I'm still 
>getting "are you certain" about Jackie Wilson!
>..and NO,  Jakcie Wislon was NOT on the the Beach Boys!
>
>Simon
>

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