Jewish involvement in R&B/soul music

[Eva Broman <evbr4965...>]

Hi everyone,

Though it's not strictly Jewish music, I'd just like to comment on the review 
of "Stars of David", reviewed by Seth R. I'm not that familiar with the world 
of (somewhat obscure?) white rock that this book deals with, but I've been 
listening to/collecting R&B and soul music for some time, and in those genres 
there is a massive Jewish involvement that deserves to be researched. Of 
course, the Jewish label owners, song writers, producers, record promoters etc 
in R&B/soul were almost exclusively "back door" men/women-and since they were 
working within an essentially African-American musical tradition, some might 
say that they didn't influence the music as such. On the other hand, I'm sure 
one could detect jewish/yiddish influences in, for example, the humourous 
"novelty" tunes that Leiber/Stoller created for the Coasters. Furthermore, 
there were the legendary song writers/producers such as Bert Berns, Seth's 
(almost) namesake Jerry Ragovoy, Jerry Wexler, Phil Spector and many others who 
were instrumental in shaping the special "uptown" NY soul style that would 
become so popular in the sixties. Moving west to Chicago, there was Ralph Bass, 
the man who discovered James Brown, and who produced many great albums for 
Chess, among other labels. Guitarist Bobby Eli was one of the chief engineers 
behind the "Philly sound" along with song writer Linda Creed. I could go on and 
on....there are countless examples if you look for them. 

There seems to be a sense of affinity between African-Americans and Jews which 
facilitated this type of co-operation across racial lines, even at times when 
segregation was strict elsewhere in society. I'm neither American nor Jewish, 
so it would be hard for me to assess...However, many of the bios of these 
people reveal that they grew up in mixed neighbourhoods (at a time when blue 
collar neighbourhoods might have been more integrated than they are now?) and 
that they became fascinated by jazz and R&B at an early age....so writing songs 
for/working with black artists was just an extension of this interest.

These are just some scattered thoughts-and if anyone has any recommendations 
for books/articles on the subject, I'd be much obliged.

All the best, Eva