Arts & Entertainment
Soul Brother
Ann Arbor's Mayer Hawthorne channels Motown
in his original compositions and upcoming album.
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
Ann Arbor
M
ayer Hawthorne loves cooking and trying new
foods, but his breakthrough connection to
Peanut Butter has nothing to do with eating.
Hawthorne, 30, grew up in Ann Arbor with the dream
of becoming a self-supporting musician and recently got
a giant boost from Peanut Butter Wolf of Stones Throw
Records.
Hawthorne, who moved to Los Angeles three years
ago while supporting himself as a graphic designer, met
Wolf through Noelle Scaggs of the Rebirth, soon signed a
recording contract and has completed his first album, A
Strange Arrangement.
Hawthorne's original soul songs on that CD, to be
released in the fall with the singer-songwriter providing the
vocals, will be previewed in Ann Arbor. His show, at 7:30
p.m. Sunday, May 17, at Necto, is one stop in a 20-city tour.
"I've done shows at Necto but never as Mayer
Hawthorne," says the emerging entertainer, who launched
in hip-hop under his real name, Drew Cohen. "Besides
doing a full set of material from my upcoming album, I'll
be doing a few covers of my favorite soul hits."
Joining Hawthorne, a multi-instrumentalist with fal-
Jews
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
Time 100
Time magazine is out with its annual
"World's 100 Most Influential People"
issue. Articles about each luminary
can be found on Time.com .
I've confirmed that the following
members of the "100" are Jewish:
Israeli foreign minister Avigdor
Lieberman; personal finance expert
Suze Orman; fashion designer Stella
McCartney (her Jewish mother
was Linda Eastman, the late wife
of Beatle Paul McCartney); reality
show producer Lauren Zalaznick;
Ponzi scheme king Bernie Madoff;
architect Elizabeth
Diller, the daughter
of Holocaust sur-
vivors; the female
hosts of the TV
show The View,
including Barbara
Walters; banker
Elizabeth
Diller
B6
May 14 • 2009
Leonard Abess Jr.
setto and breakbeat sounds, will be his band, the County.
Members, who are changeable, now feature Joe Abrams
on bass guitar, Topher Mohr on guitar, Quincy McCrary
on keyboards and Teamir Sweeney on drums.
Among Hawthorne's songs to be showcased are "A
Strange Arrangement," about a relationship both struc-
tured and open; "The Ills," about current problems in the
world; and "Just Ain't Gonna Work Out," which is about
the end of a relationship and can be seen in video pro-
duction on the Web at stonesthrow.com .
"When I signed with the record company this year, I
took on the stage name," says Hawthorne, turning his
middle name into his first name and adapting his Ann
Arbor street name into his surname.
"The soul songs started out as a joke for my family and
friends. I never had plans for a career singing soul music.
The stage name went along with the whole fun-and-
games aspect of it.
"I started taking all that seriously when I signed with
the record company and was asked to record a whole
album of this material. I had to figure out who this Mayer
Hawthorne character really is and develop the style and
the sound."
Hawthorne's interest in music grew at home, where his
parents, Richard and Kathi Cohen, played Motown record-
ings. He learned bass guitar from his dad, who works in
the garden products business and plays bass in a local
(his ethical practices and generos-
ity to his employees was saluted by
President Obama during his State
of the Union speech); journalist and
author David Sheff (best known for
his memoir Beautiful Boy, about his
struggle with his son's drug addic-
tion); New York Times columnist
Paul Krugman (winner of last year's
Nobel Prize in Economics); and Shai
Agassi, an Israeli
who now lives in
the United States.
Agassi made one
fortune developing
software. Now, he
heads up a com-
pany called Better
Place. Its aim is to
Shai Agassi
set up a network
of stations that will, via robots,
quickly replace batteries for elec-
tric cars, thus making electric cars
totally practical. Backed by Renault
and others, Better Place has
already started to build its network
in Israel and in Denmark.
Now a soul singer, Mayer Hawthorne originally
launched his music career as a hip-hop artist under
his real name, Drew Cohen.
Celeb Shorts
Opening Friday, May 15, is the doc-
umentary film Tyson, about former
heavyweight boxing champ Mike
Tyson. The filmmak-
er is James Toback,
whose memorable
film work includes
his Oscar-nomi-
nated screenplay
for Bugsy, about
Jewish gangster
James Toback
Ben "Bugsy"
Siegel.
Congrats to Sarah Jessica Parker,
44, and hubby Matthew Broderick,
47. They are going to have twin
daughters this summer via a sur-
rogate mother. Parker gave birth to
their 7-year-old son, James Wilkie,
the old-fashioned way.
People magazine is out with
its annual "100 Most Beautiful
People" issue. Jewish cuties this
year include Ashley Tisdale,
Brooke Burke, Debra Winger,
Rashida Jones, Chelsea Handler,
Anton Yelchin
and, most improb-
ably, White House
Chief of Staff
Rahm Emanuel.
He's included in
a special section
called "Barack's
Rahm
Beauties." As you
Emanuel
might expect,
Michelle Obama heads up that list.
In the same issue, People gives a
pretty good review to the new CD
by Elliot Yamin, 30, who finished
third in the American Idol contest
in 2006 and has had a fairly suc-
cessful career since.
Speaking of Idol, this season's
contestant generating the most
buzz is Adam Lambert, 27. There
are several videos on the Internet
in which Lambert sings in Hebrew.
However, there is no confirmation
that Lambert is, in fact, Jewish. No
doubt, the whole story will emerge
in the near future.