Rock 'N' Roll's
Jewish Stories
"Stars of David" author writes
about the Jewish contribution
to rock music from 1953 to the present.
MARTIN NATCHEZ
Special to the Jewish News
lipir hen Scott Benarde con-
ceived his new book,
Stars of David: Rock 'n'
Roll's Jewish Stories
(Brandeis University Press; $29.95), he
wasn't interested in simply assembling
a rockin' roll call of Jewish singers,
songwriters and musicians.
Rather, he researched and inter-
viewed more than 50 prominent Jewish
icons of the rock h' roll era to reveal
how Judaism had influenced their lives
and contributed to their success.
"My goal in the book was not to find
out how Jewish they were, but learn
how they were Jewish," explains
Benarde, 50, who was born in Lansing
and is an associate in the department of
communications for the Jewish
Federation of Palm Beach County in
Boca Raton. "I wanted to put as much
Judaism as I could into each chapter
and let people see the religious spectrum
that's out there."
One example he cites is singer David
Blatt, a New Yorker who grew up in
Queens as an Orthodox Jew. He dav-
ened daily, sported peyot and sung in the
synagogue choir, operatically emulating
his idol, Italian tenor Mario Lanza.
But at 14, Blatt felt angered that
Judaism burdened him with too many
restrictions. And today, the 65-year-
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2003
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old vocalist who changed his name
to Jay Black and was the lead
singer on Jay and the Americans'
hits "Cara Mia' and "This Magic
Moment," remains a nonobservant
Jew. Still, ironically, he has brought
up his four children Jewish and,
out of respect for his father, he never
performs on the High Holy Days.
Among others, Stars of David reli-
giously profiles former Detroiter and
hot record producer Don Was; Peter
Yarrow of Peter, Paul & Mary; the late
Zal Yanovsky of the Lovin' Spoonful;
Janis Ian; Norman Greenbaum ("Spirit
in the Sky"); Phoebe Snow; Stan
Lynch, ex-drummer of Tom Petty &
the Heartbreakers; and contemporary
acts such as Lisa Loeb and Rami Jaffee
of the Wallflowers.
Readers also are introduced to the
enigmatic P.F. Sloan (born Philip Gary
Shlein), who reads Torah daily. Sloan
was the real falsetto singer heard on Jan
& Dean's "The Little Old Lady From
Pasadena" and the songwriter of the
mid-'60s folk-rock hits "Eve of
Destruction" and "Secret Agent Man."
And a chapter devoted to Jewish
record producers Jeffrey Katz and Jerry
Kasenetz, who were responsible for the
Music Explosion's "A Little Bit of Soul"
and the bubblegum classics "Simon
Says" and "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy,"
is a sweet treat.
Stars of David combines Benarde's
lifelong passion for rock 'n'
roll with his renewed faith in
Judaism that occurred in his
late 30s. In an interview
with the Jewish News, he
shared his pleasures about
the book:
Jay and the Americans, the all-Jewish vocal group
from New York City, circa 1963
JN: What was your original
concept for Stars of David?
SB: I thought I would write
an encyclopedia and inter-
view every Jewish member
of every band that I could
find, but I didn't want to
overwhelm myself or the
reader. The book pretty
Scott Benarde: 'My goal
in the book was not to -
find out hoz() Jewish they
were, but learn how they
were Jewish."
much covers the duration of the rock
era, and while it's not the whole cake,
it's a big slice.
JN: Which artists did you most want
in the book who turned you down?
SB: The most obvious ones are Neil
Diamond and Paul Simon. I placed
numerous calls to their representatives
and never had my messages returned. I
think they believe that it's not in their
best interests to rock the boat with
their fan base about being Jewish.
JN: Books about rock music usually
skim, or totally ignore, religious sub-
ject matter. What point of view did
you want to convey?
SB: As Jews, we get real excited if some-
one of any accomplishment is Jewish,
but we don't stop to think how Judaism
influenced them, or if it did, or how it
did, or what their Judaism was like. I
wanted real life to shine through.
Everything, like when Jerry Leiber
got smacked in the head by his rabbi
on his bar mitzvah day, because he
wrapped his tefillin on the wrong arm,
to Keith Reid, feeling totally negative
about being Jewish, because every
experience he had was derived from
his grandparents being wiped out in
the Holocaust.
His father was thrown into Dachau
on Kristallnacht. Reid experienced
anti-Semitic taunts in public schools,
too, and it surfaces throughout his
work. I didn't want to bury those.
JN: On the opposite other end of
the spiritual spectrum, you inter-
viewed artists who say they are athe-
ists, yet you found that they don't
deny their Jewishness.
SB: The ones who claim that they are
atheist, or not religious at all, saw
Judaism as an important guidepost or
beacon. Leslie West (of Mountain and
"Mississippi Queen" fame) says he's a
non Jew Jew, but the older he's gotten,
the more he references being Jewish.
Manfred Mann ("Do Wah Diddy
Diddy," "The Mighty Quinn" and
"Spirit in the Night") said he was
angry at God for commanding
Abraham to kill Isaac and became an
atheist. But he was one of the biggest
mentshes I talked to. Randy Newman
("Short People"), too, one of the nicest
guys on the planet.
JN: From interviewing them, what is
your definition of an "atheist Jew"?
SB: Those guys can be all the atheists
they want, but I think that God is hav-
ing the last laugh, because they are
actually living the kinds of lives that the .
Torah asks us to live.
That's what I hope people will dis-
cover in the book, that's there's a Jewish
root that binds them, in some way, to
try to do the right thing and live the
right way. When it comes to living a
Singer/songwriter/guitarist/keyboard
player P.F. Sloan penned the No. 1 hit
"Eve of Destruction."