Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Jewish Rockers

An interesting article about Jewish rockers here, to be included in the revision of the Encyclopedia Judaica. The editor considers Bob Dylan, natch, as the no. 1 Jewish rocker.

Surprisingly unmentioned in the article: the late Mike Bloomfield, one of the top guitarists of all time, whose sweet chromatic blues licks are still influential (and who played on "Like a Rolling Stone"). Presumably he will be mentioned in the EJ article itself.

And an honorable mention must be made of Dr. Alan Cooper of the Jewish Theological Seminary, who is probably the only member of the Society of Biblical Literature who also performed at Woodstock (as a founding member of Sha Na Na). Yes, that's him singing "At the Hop" in the movie Woodstock.

UPDATE (3/2): I've been informed that Alan Cooper has been quite ill lately with severe kidney problems, and that he has been forced to cut back on his academic activities. I hadn't realized this, and my prayers (yours too, I hope) will be with Alan and Tamar and their family.

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