Saturday, June 24, 2006

Mickey Katz


I already uploaded a couple of tracks from this great LP last year but had some requests for more. How could I refuse? One of my favourite sleeves and some great yiddish flavoured novelty songs.

"Long before Allan Sherman and Woody Allen showered the public with Yiddish slang -- and decades before the klezmer revival breathed new life into a once-popular ethnic music -- a little clarinetist with a lot of chutzpah blazed the trail, exposing "crossover" audiences to the language and the melodies of his forebears with a series of English-Yiddish parody records.

Being Jewish "was always popular in my house," recalled Mickey Katz, who embraced his heritage from the early days of his career. "The only people it wasn't popular with were those who were frightened." Among those who were displeased with him for being open about his religious persuasion was the Jewish editor of Variety, who reprimanded Katz for "defiling" the legend of Davy Crockett when the bandleader's parody "Duvid Crockett" became a hit record.

Katz made a lot of people uncomfortable in the 1940s and '50s. He was too ethnic for many Jews of his generation who couldn't shed their Old World roots fast enough, and too much of a comedian for the purists -- a strange hybrid of Naftule Brandwein and Spike Jones they didn't quite dig."

See previous Mickey Katz blog page at Boot Sale Sounds HERE


Mickey Katz - Sixteen Tons

Mickey Katz - Roiselle From Texas

Mickey Katz - Tweedle Dee


These SendSpace files are available for seven days or until exhausted.

4 comments:

splogman said...

I'm a big lover of Mickey. Thanks for posting!

Jan

Wastedpapiers said...

A popular choice all round. I'm always getting e-mails asking for the previous tracks to be uploaded again so hope this makes those people happy.

Wastedpapiers said...

Thanks for dropping by arty. I just had a quick look around your blog about the joys of living in Margate. Excellent stuff. Chas 'N' Dave sing a nice song about Margate. We went for a day trip once as a child I seem to remember with my Uncle Bill who lived in Tonbridge.

Juan Duque said...

Greetings from Medellin, Colombia! Any chance of reup-ing the Mickey Katz sides?? I will be doing a small lecture about klezmer music (no one has ever heard of it here) and i would love to show Katz as evidence of klezmer and jewish culture's influence on american pop culture as well as jazz (i'll play some Don Byron stuff too)..

I run my own blog, so i know it s a lot to ask (a bitch, basically), but if you still got it lying round your harddrive, I would appreciate it!!!

thanks, Juan