New Paltz Times

7/13/2006

This Shtetl Is Your Shtetl

Klezmatics Perform Woody Guthrie's Rediscovered

Jewish Songbook at Maverick Concert Hall

by Bob Margolis

"This Land Is Your Land," of course. "Hard Travelin'," certainly. But "Honeyky Hanukkah"? "Hanukkah Tree"? There seems to be no end to the surprises dug up by Woody Guthrie's daughter and tireless archivist, Nora Guthrie. Seven years ago, she gathered rock stars to write music for some of Guthrie's thousands of unpublished lyrics, touching on decidedly non-Dust Bowl topics like UFOs, Joe DiMaggio and Ingrid Bergman.

Just two years ago, after further searches in the Woody Guthrie Archives on West 57th Street in Manhattan, where she is the executive director, Guthrie has found a series of songs on Jewish themes written in the 1940s and '50s, when her father lived in Coney Island with his second wife, Marjorie Mazia, and her Jewish family. There, the Oklahoma troubadour ate blintzes, lighted the menorah and called his son Arlo "dibuck," for dybbuk. Guthrie met Mazia, a dancer with Martha Graham's company, at a dance performance at a Manhattan studio in the early 1940s and married her in 1945.

In Coney Island they lived across the street from Mazia's mother, Aliza Greenblatt, a Yiddish poet and lyricist who may have been Guthrie's Jewish Muse. Nora Guthrie has often referred to her father peppering her grandmother with questions about Jewish history and customs and then reflecting on that information, which appeared in his songs often just days later.

Cool Factoid: In preparation for Arlo's "Hootenanny Bar Mitzvah" in 1960, his parents hired a "sweet young rabbi" as a tutor. The rabbi's name was Meir Kahane, who went on to become the extremist founder of the Jewish Defense League and the Kach political party.

The music shedding light on Guthrie's Jewish legacy was heard in 2004 at the 92nd Street Y in a concert, "Holy Ground: The Jewish Songs of Woody Guthrie," with music by the Klezmatics, Arlo Guthrie, Celtic folksinger Susan McKeown and Klezmatic Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars. The Klezmatics are set to release Wonder Wheel, a record that sets the premier klezmer ensemble on the planet with the words of Guthrie. They will dig deep into the Woody book when they play Woodstock Beat, a Saturday, July 15 gig at the Maverick Concert Hall. This benefit to aid the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild will be hosted by Nora Guthrie, who will introduce the band and guests, including McKeown and Boo Reiners.

Tickets are available at the Hall one hour before each concert. Doors to the Concert Hall open one-half hour before each performance. General admission is $20; students $5 (with valid student ID); children under 12 are admitted free when accompanied by an adult. There is also rock-bottom "pay what you can" lawn seating (bring your own chair or blanket).