Customer Reviews

And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I laughed. I cried. I frantically looked through my own large record collection to find the very small number of the albums discussed within the book. Even if you have never heard of more than a tiny fraction of the musical artists discussed herein, you will enjoy the discussion of how this music/art fit within the culture. And you will dig it, even if you are not Jewish. Even more so if you are. Nah...it doesn't matter-all but Osama Bin Laden will love this book.

It's hard to imagine that a concept of LP covers could stir my memory bank. The authors have done a great research job and classified various chapters based on the covers themselves. Showing over 400 album covers and seperating them in the proper chapters was done beautifully. Fond memories of a earlier time were reestablished because of this book. Now part of my reference collection. Well done. (JAS)

What's not to like about a roundup of recordings of musical and spoken Judaica? The religious (virtually all musical)and the secular (about half comedy and half pop music) are covered here, along with the album art, which ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous.

bought this for my brother, the music maven. Nice overview of Jewish influence in the music business.

A creative pictorial collection of record album covers reflecting the rich history of Jews in America. Very enjoyable to skim through and recall the famous and the unknowns who generated so much enjoyable music and religious-cultural commentary. Sort of a coffee-table book that people will undoubtedly pick up, smile at and comment on.

This book can be a nostalgic gift to an older person who appreciates Jewish music; it can be a unique coffee table book for anyone who enjoys beautiful visuals and interesting text, and it was so different and uplifting that I ended up buying one for myself just because I liked knowing it was a timeless resource for my book shelf.

I heard the authors on NPR, and liked the book very much when I got it.
I bought it for a present. He liked it too.

OK, my mom is long gone, but my sweetie got me this book for Hanukah and I know she really loves me. I own a few of the albums shown here. One of them caused me to break my mother's fancy shmancy marble coffee table in two when I was a kid, the music made me dance so hard. Ah, the memories. If you know any (living) Yiddish speaking songwriters (there have to be more than five or ten besides me, I'm certain), this would make a perfect gift. Beyond that, this is the kind of book that would appeal to record collectors, I'm guessing.

Warning though: most of these albums are best just for cover gazing. For instance one of the titles here, Bagels and Bongos, has some of the most awful musicianship you could possibly hear (the drummer should have been shot before the recording session to save everyone some ear pain). But there are surprises. For instance, Mickey Katz is often reviled by Yiddish purists, but man those musicians on his albums knew how to play. By the way, Mickey Katz wasn't the one who caused me to break my mom's coffee table. That will stay a family secret.

Brought me back to the days of WW2 when we danced to so many of the records. Coming from a family of musicians it was especially interesting and informative.

It's a fun book to go through and remember all the music from the past 50 or so years. It's focus is on what Jews listened to not just Jewish music. Fun!