ence was skeptical. A frum guy, with a
funky, colorful kippah, on electric
guitar?
But he won them over. Mention his
name to a frum family in Oak Park and
you'll see a wild, bobbing nod and a
reply somewhat like this: "Oh yeah! He's
great. Played my cousin's wedding."
In fact, he made special trips to
Detroit to perform at the weddings of
the children of Dr. Arnold Zuroff, a
local dentist. "He's my man in
Detroit, my favorite person in Ameri-
ca," Piamenta gushes.
"When I first came here, my wife
had problems with her teeth. We were
very poor. He sent her a ticket to come
to him, he took care of her, thousands
of dollars of work, didn't want a penny"
Piamenta got into the music busi-
ness just as he became religious.
Already popular on the Israeli rock
scene, he met saxophone great Stan
Getz in 1976 and invited the Ameri-
can star to his place for a jam session.
Eventually, they made an album
together, "and all of a sudden I was
starting to fulfill my American dream,
to be rich and famous and stuff like
that," he says.
A few months later, Piamenta was
stateside,
living with Getz and meet-
_7)
ing popular musicians like Buddy
Rich and Billy Cobham.
Yet despite his quick ascent to the
top of Hollywood entertainment cir-
cles, something was missing.
"They took drugs, they inter-cou-
pled — I did not want to become one
of them," he recalls.
At the same time, Piamenta had
/-
been rediscovering religion, reading up
on Buddhism, yoga, meditation, even
German theory. Nothing Jewish.
"[Then] it hit me that I'm a Jew
and I would want to check out
[Judaism, too]. When I came to-
America [at age 25], I wanted to keep
Israel with me. I found the tefillin that
my grandfather bought me for my bar
mitzvah; they had lain in the closet for
10 years. I figured I would put them
on wherever I was in the world."
He got more and more into Jewish
life, then returned to Israel and started
to keep Shabbat. A while later he met
his wife, a 16-year-old distant cousin 10
years his junior, who lived in Miami.
They married in London.
As he became more religious, Pia-
menta had to face the fact that his
income often depended upon Friday
night performances. He wanted a
"kosher job" that would allow him to
play guitar and keep the Sabbath.
Weddings were the only option.
"I started from zero," he says. "I
started on a cheaper rate just to learn
the material — no Chasidic band had
an electric guitar — they had saxo-
phones, clarinets, organs, drums,
trumpets. I was pioneering this instru-
ment in that musical style.
Only electric guitar can imitate
the voice. When you bend strings,
then you can go between the notes.
It's not like piano; it's half-tones, so I
can imitate the way the Chasidim sing
songs better than any other instru-
ment," he says.
"In the beginning, it was surprising
to [my audiences], but more and more
they started to digest me in. Within
two years, I became very popular; they
all wanted that guitarist with the
strange yarmulke."
Piamenta's music does not contra-
dict his observant lifestyle; actually, he
says, they are complementary
"Since I became religious, I have
become a much better musician.
Sometimes I have to make a choice:
read tehillim or study guitar, and I
decide to study Torah.
"Afterward, I have better ability on
the guitar. I cannot explain it except
that my inside is more relaxed, so I
have better control on the instrument.
Besides, when I play, it's just like when
I pray. If you bring happiness to peo-
ple, you are close to God."
Piamenta currently lives with his
wife and six children in Flatbush, N.Y.
Most of his first six albums can only
be found in Jewish bookstores, but
things are changing.
With a big-name label behind him,
his music is being seen in wider circles
as rock 'n' roll - not Chasidic, not
Jewish, but very versatile with Middle
Eastern influences."
With a few appearances on Come-
dy Central and an ad-hoc session with
blues bands in Memphis, Tenn., Pia-
menta's certainly being noticed.
"People in the streets [of Memphis]
said, 'Hey, we watched you on TV,
can we take a picture with you?' They
took me in the clubs and asked per-
mission from the black hands that
played music there if I could go on
the stage with them, and sure enough,
these people [had] watched me on TV
and said, 'Yes, he's good,' and I played
music with them.
"That showed me that I do have an
open door to the real musicA market."
NOW
OPEN!
PAUL AND JIMMY PANAGOPOULOS,
AND CHEF THEODORE OF THE
NEW AND OLD DOWNTOWN
PARTHENON AND
LEO STASSINOPOULOS,
WILL SOON BRING FINE
AUTHENTIC GREEKTOWN
CUISINE TO YOU.
4 01- 1-4,
T.4.1.JRANT
yv
TIC GREEK CUISIN
7 DAYS A WE it-
43'01 ORCHARD LARD.
LOCATED AT CROSSWIN P
, LAZA
WEST BEOGSVILD
ER,OF ORCHARD'
Si LON: INE
Yosi Piamenta's CD Strings of
My Heart is available on the
RCA label.
1 /8
1999
Detroit Jewish News
73