ertainment
Love Songs
strottFaves
Mel Ball, band leader who
sets the mood at many formal
parties:
"I really have lots of
favorites, but if I have to pick
one, it would be 'Come Rain
or Come Shine.' It has a great
melody and lyrics. I love. the
composer, Harold Men, and
what the song has to say
about all the times people
experience."
Lori Corrsin, Temple Israel
cantor and entertainer:
"I like the subtlety of the
Gershwin classic 'Someone to
Watch Over Me' and the
Rodgers and Hammerstein
song `If I Loved You.' They're
about yearning for that per-
fect someone. I've sung them
both in concerts and at a jazz
club in Israel, and people
really responded."
Ron Harwood, owner of
Illuminating Concepts in
Farmington Hills and an
entertainment producer who
worked with Bonnie Raitt in
the 1980s:
"I like Paul Simon's
`Kodachrome.' It describes
very bright images and
makes it seem like all the
world is a sunny day. I first
heard it when I was dating
my wife, Shelly, and we've
been married for 21 years.
Because we love traveling
and taking pictures, the song
is really right for us."
Stacie Bahle, rabbi at Ahavat
Shalom in Traverse City:
"I've sung `I Will Shelter
You' by Rinde Eckert at some
50 weddings, and it's a won-
derful chuppah song. It's
about loving someone as that
someone is. My husband and
I love dancing to it at home."
Stephen Lipsen, senior
account executive at Marx
Layne 6- Company, a public
relations firm:
"When I was discovering
girls, I heard 'Reasons' by
Earth, Wind & Fire. It was
good for slow dancing, and I
liked the words about passion
evolving around love. It's very
smooth, and I still like it."
JN
2/14
2003
66
All You Need Is Love (Songs)
In love with a wonderful guy (or girl)?
Put on some Jewish melodies that celebrate romance.
English and Hebrew lyrics and hon-
ors relationships in which two feel as
one.
"Valentine's Day represents all that
love could and should be, and this
CD represents the same musically,"
Taubman says.
"I receive hundreds of CDs from
book, we grew up with stories, and
love stories are the ultimate stories."
- Taubman, who soon will have the
I is easy to bring a Jewish
lyric translations on his Web site,
mood to Valentine's Day —
www.celebrateseries.com , features
and set aside the lore that goes
only one selection with an English
with its history — by flipping
title, Sally Fingerett's "He Loved Her
a switch. Put a CD of Jewish love
So (The Ballad of Harry & Esther)."
songs on the stereo and let the
"I wrote this in 1990, and it
music fill the room.
comes from a compilation of
Irving Berlin, certainly at the
different people," says
heart of the great Jewish writers
Fingerett, who recently married
of romantic melodies and lyrics
a man she met through a
gave advice on this subject in
Jewish Web site.
1923, when he wrote "Say It
"The couples in my family
With Music."
were like Harry and Esther,
"Music is a language lovers
with each person not being
understand," his lyrics explain.
able to imagine living without
"Melody and romance wander
[his or her mate]. I think the
ir
hand in hand."
song
exemplifies some Jewish
Rabbi Moshe
Bruce Burger
Sally Fingerett
While Berlin captured atti-
relationships, and I think peo-
Schachter
(Rebbe Soul)
tudes toward love as he worked
ple with strong ethnic feelings
in the early and middle parts
can relate to it."
of 20th-century America, two
Rabbi Moshe Schachter is
recent CD releases also
represented on the CD with
express a variety of romantic
"Mi Bon," a song that
perspectives with some Jewish
appears on his own CD,
points of view.
Boneh Yerushalayim.
Celebrate Jewish Love Songs,
"Mi Bon" was written for
a compilation assembled by
the marriage service of
singer-songwriter Craig
friends, and he sang it dur-
Taubman, offers a mixture
ing the ceremony.
that reaches back to the bibli-
"I think of Jewish love
cal "Song of Songs" and
songs as an expression of
moves forward to today's
pure feelings passed along
more worldly sounds. Cedille
from generation to genera-
Records' Dancing on the Edge
tion," Schachter says.
of a Volcano, also a compila-
"I believe that love and
tion, offers romantic songs of
sensuality are taken from a
Europe, each expressed in
pure place and that every day
both English and the original
should bring expressions of
language of the writer.
love and be like Valentine's
"When one thinks of the
Day in that way."
great romantics and lovers of
Bruce Burger, who uses the
world history, the Jewish peo-
stage name Rebbe Soul and
ple are probably not found on Ms people of the book, we grew up with stories, and love
recently released a CD titled
stories are the ultimate stories," says Craig Taubman,
the top of most lists,"
Change the World With a
producer of "Celebrate Jewish Love Songs."
Taubman says. "Yet Jewish
Sound, performs "Et Dodim"
culture and literature are
on Celebrate Jewish Love
filled with romantic poetry."
Songs. He brings the beat of
other artists, and after a while, I saw
today's world music to text from
the thread of love and turned that
"Song of Songs."
Celebrating Love
into this recording. The CD puts
"This is a very romantic and
Taubman's CD is the latest in his
into words and notes what people
respectful song with colorful poetry,"
"Celebrate" series, which has pro-
feel but can't necessarily express.
says the entertainer, who recently
duced recordings generally devoted
"I think Jewish love songs are dif-
joined 40 musicians in Israel for a
to Jewish holidays. On the album,
ferent from other love songs in that
traveling music festival that stopped in
he performs only one song,
they give Jews the sense that they've
towns directly affected by terrorism.
"V'erastich Li," which has both
been heard before. As people of the
LOVE (SONGS) on page 68
SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News