Jewish Christmas songs

Jewish Christmas songs? What? You gotta be kidding!

My wife told me years ago that Irving Berlin was Jewish. This sort of comment is rather common from her. We will be watching a movie or listening to music or talking about music, and she will say "did you know that perfomrer is Jewish?" She is understandably proud of her heritage and there are a surprisingly large number of Jewish folks in the entertainment industry. Inordinately large, given the realtively small percentage of people in the US who are Jewish.

So, when she mentioned Irving Berlin, I was not particularly surprised.

Then I got to thinking about it. Didn't he write "White Christmas"? Yup, she said. Well, that's odd. But, I looked it up on Wikipedia. It's all true.

But I found out this week that "White Christmas" is not the only Jewish Christmas song. I was reading a column by Garrison Keillor (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/garrison_keillor/2009/12/15/cambridge).

First, let me apologize. This article is a real piece of curmudgeonry. I don't recommend it. But Keillor made a comment that caught my interest: "And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck."

So I went to Wikipedia. "Chestnuts roasting..." Ummm... that's" The Christmas Song", which I know was written by Mel Torme. Was he Jewish? Wiki says "yes". Interesting. Two Jewish Christmas songs!

How about "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"? Robert May wrote the original story for Montgomery Wards. He was not Jewish. But, the guy who wrote the song about Rudolph was Johnny Marks, and he was Jewish. It turns out he wrote quite a few Christmas songs, including

"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day",
"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree",
"A Holly Jolly Christmas", and
"Run Rudolph Run".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Marks

Wow. That makes seven!

Johnny Marks, by the way, was born on my birthday in 1909. Cool, huh?

A little more digging and I found two more Jewish Christmas songs. Sammy Kahn and Jule Styne wrote "Let it snow, let is snow", and Livingston and Evans wrote "Silver Bells".

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/culture/2/Music/American_Jewish_Music/Songs_By_American_Jews.shtml

Wow. That makes nine popular Christmas songs written by Jewish people.

This last week, I happened to remember an article that I had seen in the Utne Reader maybe ten years ago. The article was a tongue in cheek look at the eerie similarities between Elvis and Jesus. I rooted around and found a link. Very silly. Read it.

http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/post/7374/

As I re-read this, I noticed that it said that Elvis was Jewish. Wow. I wonder... did he write "Blue Christmas"? Could that be the tenth Jewish Christmas song?

Well, first we have to ask, was Elvis really Jewish, or is this just urban legend? I rooted around and found a number of sites that at least sounded credible:

http://www.elvispresleynews.com/JewishElvis.html
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-entertainment-elvis-presley.html
http://israelinsider.ning.com/forum/topics/all-shook-up-in-the-holy-land

I checked Snopes, and there is no listing for "Elvis Jewish". I checked Wikipedia and it said "Presley's ancestry was primarily a Western European mix—Scots-Irish, with some French Norman; one of Gladys's great-great-grandmothers was Cherokee and, according to family accounts, one of her great-grandmothers was Jewish."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis

Note that Jewish decent comes through your mother. If your mother was Jewish, then so are you. Elvis' mother's mother's mother was Jewish, so there you have it. He was Jewish.

Well, I'll be darned. I guess my wife wasn't kidding when she said a lot of performers are Jewish!

Ok... so was "Blue Christmas" another Jewish Christmas song? Did Elvis write it? Well, unfortunately Wikipedia says that it was written by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson. I couldn't find much information on these two guys, but there doesn't seem to be any reason to think that they were Jewish.

But this brings up an interesting question. Did Elvis write any of his songs? I came across a number of webpages that stated that Elvis never wrote any songs, but that he was given credit for writing several songs. It seems that a deal was cut with the original authors. Elivs would agree to sing their songs if they agreed to give Elvis credit. Elvis got a bigger cut and the authors stood to make more money than if Elvis did not sing their song.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071215213656AAG8q1V
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Did_Elvis_Presley_Write_His_Own_songs
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Presley-Elvis-562/Elvis-songwriting.htm

None of these webpages give anything in the way of references or even really say who was answering the question, so it's hard to say just how credible they are. But still. I've written a bunch of songs, so I am better than Elvis. And I'm not even Jewish. I even wrote a Passover song.

Wikipedia has an entry (with references) that says that Elvis actually wrote two songs, neither of which were big hits. There goes my bubble.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That%27s_Someone_You_Never_Forget

I came upon another interesting fact in my digging:

"In 1958, the 'Hound Dog/Don't Be Cruel' single became just the third record to sell more than 3 million copies, following Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas' and Gene Autry's 'Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer'."

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=473

I have not been able to corroborate this, so maybe I shouldn't call it a fact. But it is interesting for two reasons. First, of course, it is interesting because I was born in 1958. Notice how I keep popping up in this narrative? Me ... Elvis ... Jewish stuff. All intertwined. The fundamental interconnectedness of all things.

The second point of interest was that "Hound Dog" was written by two Jews, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller.

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/culture/2/Music/American_Jewish_Music/Songs
_By_American_Jews.shtml

Wow.

Which candidate would win a karaoke contest?

Since I am the foremost authority on karaoke in the Milwaukee area, people are always asking me karaoke-related questions. "What is the longest karaoke song?" "Why isn't it spelled kareoke?" "What is my favorite brand of underarm deodorant?"

Ok. So I lied about the deodorant question. Nobody ever asked me that. And come to think of it, no one has asked me the other two questions. But they might have. They just never got around to it.

And ok, so, no one hardly ever asks me a karaoke question. I can deal with that. I'm a big boy.

Well. This one guy at worked asked me this morning, "Hey John. How ya doing?" Naturally, I understood him to mean "John, could you please give me a list of all the songs that were performed a your last gig at Bootleggers?" I mean, I could tell that was what he wanted to know. Too bad he had to run off to a meeting before I could finish reciting the list. I'll catch up with him again tomorrow.

Alright, so I am not inundated with karaoke questions. I am still the foremost karaoke authority in Milwaukee, right?

Anyway.

Here is the top karaoke-related question that nobody has been pounding down my door to get an answer to: "If Obama and McCain were to enter a karaoke contest, which one would win?"

I gave this question all the serious thought that it deserved. I googled "John McCain" karaoke, and "Barack Obama" karaoke. Obama got 967,000 hits, to McCain's 618,000. Hmmm... Obama gets the clear lead in the polls.

But how about the real contest, the one that counts?

I would invite you to listen to McCain's version of a Beach Boys hit.
And here is Obama singing "Yes we can".

I guess we will have to wait until the votes get tallied to see who wins this karaoke contest.

Pics from Bootleggers

Here are some pictures that I have taken at my last three gigs at Bootleggers....















Come join me at Bootleggers every Monday night!

The hippie party

Dig the groovy threads on that Jeannie chick. She's the one that got this scene happenin'.


Naturally, Elvis was invited. After all, what's a 60's and 70's party without the king?!?


Willie Nelson stopped by, and so did one of the Beach Boys, and some guy who was with Styx?


The gals sang and the guys tried to compete.



We were honored to hear Alyson sing. She was one of 25 finalists for Nashville Idol!



And by the way, her aunt Jeannie can belt out a ballad, too!



Until, later, here are the Gypsy Songstress and John the Revelator, hoping that all your 60's and 70's parties are as successful as this one was!

Great party coming up...

Time for me to find a pair of bell bottoms, get out my sandals, buy a vest with leather fringes, get some love beads and find that old peace symbol necklace! Why is that, you may ask??

I have been invited to host karaoke at a 60's and 70's party!! Far freakin' out! I will be grooving out at this happening place on Sept 13. Sorry... it's a private party, or I would be asking more people to make the scene.

That following Friday, I will be singing at Trinity Village, assisted living center. I have sung there before and have gotten such a warm reception that it's well worth it to take half a vacation day from work.

In the mean time, I have been soliciting the patrons at Bootleggers for songs that I need to add to my collection. In the past month, I have purchased nearly 700 songs, which brings my total up to 4,510 songs as of this morning. See the latest songbook at John the Revelator.

I hope everyone has an enjoyable and restful Labor Day.

off to my third gig at Bootleggers

I have now had two gigs at Bootleggers Milwaukee bar and grill. I continue to be pumped about the place. Aside from having a bit of a wardrobe malfunction, we had quite a few excellent singers.

I was surprised to hear that the song "Vehicle" (Ides of March, 1970) is still popular, as well it should be. The song was done proud by "Beer Lover". The crowd loved it. Marcellus was another crowd pleaser. It is not my usual, but I could see that people wanted to hear another from him, so he sang two in a row.

Normally, when three people step up on stage, this is a good sign that you are about to hear karaoke with a lower case "k". People just having fun. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing. Karaoke is all about having fun. So, when I got a slip from Anthony, Travis and Rob, my expectation were not set real high. But! All three of these guys can sing! The first week and this last week as well. Welcome!

There are a few people on the staff at Bootleggers who also have wonderful voices. The week before, Ben (the Monday night manager) had asked if I had any Gavin DeGraw. Last week I brought in "I don't want to be". Ben was studying to be an opera major. I'm glad he decided to use his voice for more popular singing!!

I am so glad to have Bethany the cocktail waitress sing! Rashida, you rock. Joanne, Kari and Abby... I love old time rock and roll, too! Liam the Kiwi visited us all the way from New Zealand!

Cristal has sung both nights that I have hosted. One person came up to me while she was singing "SHE'S AWESOME!" I would have to agree.

After my first night at Bootleggers, I added 252 songs. After the second night, I added 194. Hopefully the last four CDs will show up in the mail on Monday so that I can quickly load them on my laptop for the show.


If there are any songs you would like to see added to my book, email me: Revelator.Karaoke@gmail.com. I will do my best to bring them in.

Gig at Bootleggers

Monday afternoon I got an email. The regular karaoke DJ at Bootleggers had broken his ankle, and they needed a karaoke DJ to fill in. That night.

I will be honest. Doing a regular gig in a bar was not part of my original business plan. I didn't relish the idea of dealing with cigarette smoke. I didn't relish the idea of packing up heavy gear at 2:00 AM. And, to continue being honest, I have been in some seedy hole-in-the-wall bars looking for that ultimate karaoke experience. I didn't relish the idea of hosting karaoke to twelve drunk guys and a dog.

But, they said that I could use their sound system. I wouldn't have to schelp around my amp and a bunch of heavy speakers. But still I worried that maybe their amp was ... well ... something not all that spectacular.

So, it was with some trepidation that I agreed to help them out this last Monday night.

I could not have been more wrong. I was totally way wronger. First, the place is huge, brand new, and just has a good feel to it. With the ventilation and high ceiling, I did not notice smoke. The "little Monday night crowd" was a few more than 12. Last Monday night, there were 300 people. I could not believe it. A Monday night?!?!

Did I say I had some concerns ahead of time that their sound system would be lousy?!?? OMG. I was wrong on that as well. I have never had that much horsepower at my fingertips. The space shuttle astronauts never had that much horsepower. What I thought was the stage was actually the box for one of the subwoofers.

The patrons were another pleasant surprise. All upscale, good attitudes, positive vibes. They were there to have fun. And, get this, most of them could sing! I had a blast.

I came home and bought 25 CDs of pop hits.

I am now the regular Monday night karaoke DJ at Bootleggers Bar and Grill, 1025 N. Old World Third Street, Milwaukee!!