Jewish singers in the history of modern American popular music (that is, music aiming at the masses, arising out of a commercial marketing system, and still retaining some popularity today) can be broadly categorized into three chronological groups: pioneer generations (1900s to 1920s), jukebox generations (1930s to mid-1950s), and rock generations (mid-1950s to the present).
Some singers who rose to prominence between the 1930s and the mid-1950s (with a little natural leeway on both ends of the spectrum) did so through the established routes of vaudeville and Broadway, such as Libby Holman, Lillian Roth, Phil Silvers, and Danny Kaye. However, this era was mainly characterized by the rise of technology-driven straight singers. These generations pioneered the use of modern microphone techniques in concert, radio, and recording performances to establish themselves as pure singers, not as singing comics or singing actors. With the modern microphone, singers could experiment with softer tones, less breath, and an intimate, conversational sound. A general term used to describe this softer singing style was crooning, the most famous exponent being the non-Jewish singer Frank Sinatra, while an outstanding Jewish example was Buddy Clark. Other new-style Jewish singers included Tony Martin, Helen Forrest, Dinah Shore, Mel Tormé , and Eddie Fisher. The growing American enthusiasm for recordings by these singers and by other contemporary popular musicians (such as swing-jazz instrumentalists) led to the proliferation of jukeboxes in bars, diners, and drugstores.
Below are brief bios of some of the most notable Jewish singers, old style and new style, of the jukebox generations. (Caveat: inclusion among the biographees in this series–“Jewish Singers in American Popular Music”–does not necessarily mean that the singer practiced Judaism; it simply means that, according to published reports, the person had at least one Jewish parent or was a convert to Judaism.)
Libby Holman (originally Elizabeth Lloyd Holzman), born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1904, had a deep, sultry contralto voice that successfully made the transition from musical theater to intimate recordings and nightclub performances. She sang in the Broadway musicals Merry-Go-Round (1927) and Rainbow (1928) before reaching stardom with The Little Show (1929), featuring her performance of “Moanin’ Low.” Holman had a hit recording in 1929 with “Am I Blue?” In the musical Revenge with Music (1934), she thrilled audiences with her insinuating rendition of “You and the Night and the Music.” Later she gave concert tours and sang in nightclubs, presenting a program that she called Blues, Ballads, and Sin Songs. Many of her classic recordings are compiled on the album The Legendary Libby Holman (1965). She died in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1971.
Mickey Katz (originally Meyer Myron Katz) was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1909. He began his career as a dance-band clarinetist. In 1946 he joined Spike Jones and His City Slickers, for whom he performed not only clarinet parts but also “glugs” and other comical vocal sounds. The following year he formed his own group and began making recordings of hilarious English-Yiddish parodies of well-known songs. His first recording features “Haim afen Range” (from “Home on the Range”) on one side, while the flip side is “Yiddish Square Dance,” with Katz as an Arkansas hog caller calling a square dance in Yiddish. Other recordings include “Dot’s Morris” (from “That’s Amore”), “How Much Is That Pickle in the Window?” (from “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?”), and “Kiss of Meyer” (from “Kiss of Fire”). His opera takeoffs include The Barber of Shlemiel. In 1948 he formed his Borscht Capades, an English-Yiddish stage revue with which he toured for many years. Katz died in Los Angeles in 1985.
Lillian Roth (her father’s original surname was Rutstein) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1910. She entered show business as a child and soon became a major singing star on Broadway, as in the 1928 and 1931 editions of the Earl Carroll Vanities. She also sang in early sound films, such as the Marx Brothers classic Animal Crackers (1930). Soon, however, her career went into limbo as she struggled for nearly two decades against alcoholism and mental illness. In her book I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1954), she movingly tells the story of her return to a healthy life and an active career. Among her later performances was an appearance in the Broadway musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1962). Roth died in New York City in 1980.
Kitty Carlisle (originally Catherine Conn) was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1910. She became a well-known singing actress in New York City stage productions of musicals and operettas, such as the Broadway musical comedy White Horse Inn (1936), and sang in some movies, notably the Marx Brothers classic A Night at the Opera (1935). She was married to the famed playwright Moss Hart from 1946 to 1961 (his death), and for the rest of her life she often used the name Kitty Carlisle Hart. In her middle years she gained fame as a television panelist, guest lecturer, and leader of cultural organizations. However, she never abandoned her musical interests, and at the age of ninety-six she was still touring the country and singing Broadway songs in a one-woman stage act called Here’s to Life. She died in New York City in 2007.
Belle Barth (originally Annabelle Salzman) was born in New York City in 1911. She was a major vaudeville star in the 1930s and 1940s, singing popular standards and imitating Sophie Tucker, Al Jolson, and other established entertainers. In the 1950s she developed a risqué song-and-comedy act that she performed in nightclubs and on albums. Barth died in Miami Beach, Florida, in 1971.
Phil Silvers (originally Philip Silver) was born of Russian immigrants in New York City in 1911. He sang at family weddings and bar mitzvahs before he was five years old. Later he sang at a silent-movie house, in children’s variety shows, and, in 1923, with Gus Edwards’s famous troupe of juvenile vaudevillians. When his voice changed, he turned his attention to comedy and comic singing, performing in vaudeville, on the borscht circuit, and in burlesque. In 1939 he got his big break in the Broadway musical comedy Yokel Boy, playing the role of Punko Parks, the prototype for the comic character that Silvers would repeatedly play to perfection during the rest of his career: the aggressive, smiling manipulator. He went on to appear in the Broadway musical comedies High Button Shoes (1947) and Top Banana (1951), the latter in one of his most memorable song-and-dance roles, Jerry Biffle, a burlesque comic whose life centers on getting laughs at any cost. Silvers also starred in the film version of Top Banana (1954). During 1955-59 he starred in the nonmusical television sitcom originally called You’ll Never Get Rich but eventually known as The Phil Silvers Show (later syndicated as Sergeant Bilko). He remained, however, close to his musical-comedy roots, appearing onstage in Do Re Mi (1960), playing Lycus in the film version (1966) of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and starring as Pseudolus in a stage revival (1972) of the same musical. Silvers died in Los Angeles in 1985.
Buddy Clark (originally Samuel Goldberg) was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1912. He made a name for himself by crooning on radio in the 1930s and then became a recording star in the 1940s, especially with “Linda,” a major hit in 1947. Clark had a smooth, easily identifiable voice and was noted for his good phrasing and intonation. He was on his way to the top of his field when his life was cut short by a plane crash in Los Angeles in 1949.
Tony Martin (originally Alvin Morris) was born of Polish immigrants in Oakland, California, in 1912. He began in show business as a dance-band saxophonist and later turned to singing. He was one of America’s most successful recording artists from the late 1930s through the early 1950s, with such hits as “All the Things You Are” (1939), “The Last Time I Saw Paris” (1940), “Sleepy Lagoon” (1942), “Hooray for Love” (1948), “A Penny a Kiss” (duet with Dinah Shore, 1951), and “Stranger in Paradise” (1953). During that time he also sang in many films, including Sing, Baby, Sing (1936), Ziegfeld Girl (1941), Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), and Here Come the Girls (1953). In 1948 he married the dancer Cyd Charisse, with whom he performed for many years in nightclubs and theaters, billed as the Man with the Golden Voice and the Girl with the Golden Legs.
Danny Kaye (originally David Daniel Kaminski) was born of Russian immigrants in New York City in 1913. He began his professional career as a teenager on the borscht circuit, where he developed as a singer, comedian, and actor. In 1933 he performed with a revue troupe in the Orient, where he learned to appeal to non-English-speaking audiences by scat singing, which consists of the expressive vocalizing of meaningless syllables with an occasional recognizable word for emphasis. In 1939 he teamed up with his future wife, Sylvia Fine, whose sparkling melodies and absurd lyrics perfectly showcased Kaye’s personality and talent for dialect singing and for patter (humorous, rapid-fire) songs. She provided him with songs for his first Broadway show (The Straw Hat Revue, 1939), his first important nightclub engagements, and many of his later stage and film performances. Kaye reached stardom in the Kurt Weill Broadway musical Lady in the Dark (1941) and soon began to appear in a series of movies designed as vehicles for his unique comedic and musical versatility, including Wonder Man (1945), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), Hans Christian Andersen (1952), and The Court Jester (1956). He also hosted The Danny Kaye Show on radio (1945-46) and television (1963-67) and performed in the Broadway musical Two by Two (1970), but he always preferred the freedom of concert appearances, where he could exercise his ability to improvise. In his later years Kaye was best known as UNICEF’s official ambassador-at-large to the world’s children, going into the poorest, most remote areas of the world to entertain children while teams of UNICEF workers administered medical and other aid. Kaye died in Los Angeles in 1987.
Zero Mostel (originally Samuel Joel Keep ‘Em Laughing (1942) and worked for many years as a comedian and actor before giving his first memorable performance in a musical role, as Pseudolus in the stage (1962) and film (1966) versions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Though he leaned heavily on slapstick comedy in that play, he later conveyed a much subtler and more sensitive kind of humor as Tevye in the original Broadway production of the musical Fiddler on the Roof (1964), a role he reprised in a 1977 tour. Mostel died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1977.
Helen Forrest (originally Helen Fogel) was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1917. In 1934 she adopted her new surname and began singing professionally on New York City radio programs. Influenced by the jazz singers Ella Fitzgerald and Mildred Bailey, Forrest developed a warm, smooth style that was equally effective in romantic ballads and up-tempo arrangements. She became a major star in the big-band, or swing, era, working with bands led by Artie Shaw (1938-39), Benny Goodman (1939-41), and Harry James (1941-43). Swing music was basically an instrumental art form, characterized by sophisticated big-band arrangements that emphasized ensemble playing, with interpolated jazz improvisations by soloists, including the singer (that is, the vocalist fit in with the band; the band did not simply back up the vocalist). Forrest helped revolutionize swing music in 1941 by convincing James to build arrangements around her, not the band. As a result they recorded some huge hits, including “I Don’t Want to Walk without You” (1941), “I Had the Craziest Dream” (1942), and “I’ve Heard That Song Before” (1942). Her efforts had an effect beyond the swing era, helping lay the groundwork for the preeminence of singers in later American popular music. She was also the first white female singer to record with a black leader, working with Lionel Hampton on two sides, including “I’d Be Lost without You,” in 1940. After becoming a solo act in 1943, Forrest went on to sing for decades on radio, in supper clubs, in theaters, at festivals, on television, and on recordings, including the album Miss Helen Forrest: Voice of the Name Bands (1956). She died in Los Angeles in 1999.
Dinah Shore (originally Frances Rose Shore) was born in Winchester, Tennessee, in 1917. She learned about music from her black nursemaid, Yah-Yah, who took her to hear black congregations sing spirituals and taught her how to imitate black jazz singers by playfully sliding up and down the scale. Out of those experiences, Shore developed a unique throaty, dramatic way of singing in which she made each word meaningful to the listener. She always regarded herself as basically a blues singer, but her blues style was a mainstream version that some critics called “sentimental” and even “gushy.” However, American audiences loved her, and she had phenomenal success throughout the 1940s and 1950s. During that time she was the most popular blues singer in the country and the undisputed queen of the jukeboxes. Her recording hits include “Yes, My Darling Daughter” (1940), “Dinah’s Blues” (1940), “Memphis Blues” (1940), “Jim” (1941), “Blues in the Night” (1942), “Shoofly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy” (1946), “Anniversary Song” (1947), “Buttons and Bows” (1948), “Dear Hearts and Gentle People” (1949), “Whatever Lola Wants” (1955), “Love and Marriage” (1955), “Chantez-Chantez” (1957), and “Fascination” (1957). She also sang in some films, such as Up in Arms (1944), and was a major star on radio, hosting her own show from 1939 to 1947. Shore eventually became most famous for hosting her own television series, under various titles, at first as variety programs (1951-62) and later as talk shows (1970s to early 1990s). She died in Beverly Hills, California, in 1994.
Sylvia Syms (originally Sylvia Blagman) was born in New York City in 1917. She sang in the musical theater but was most famous for her dynamic jazz stylings in cabaret performances. Frank Sinatra called the grainy-voiced contralto “the best saloon singer in the world.” She had a hit single in 1956 with her up-tempo version of the theatrical song “I Could Have Danced All Night” (from Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady). Her albums include That Man (1961), Syms by Sinatra (1982), and You Must Believe in Spring (1992). Syms died in New York City in 1992.
Stubby Kaye, born in New York City in 1918, earned fame as a Broadway musical-comedy singer portraying Nicely-Nicely Johnson in Guys and Dolls (1950) and Marryin’ Sam in Li’l Abner (1956). He reprised those roles in the film versions of the plays (1955 and 1959 respectively). Besides playing nonsinging comedy roles in many films and television productions, Kaye recorded the album Music for Chubby Lovers (1962), sang in the movie Cat Ballou (1965), and performed in the Broadway musical Grind (1985). He died in Rancho Mirage, California, in 1997.
Theodore Bikel was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1924. He studied and acted in Palestine (now Israel) and London, England, before settling in the United States in 1954 and becoming an American citizen in 1961. Widely known as a dramatic actor, he is also an accomplished singer of both folk songs and Broadway music. As a folksinger (of mostly Jewish folk songs but others as well), he accompanies himself on the guitar. In 1961 he helped found the Newport Folk Festival. Bikel played Captain Georg Von Trapp in the original Broadway production of The Sound of Music (1959), has starred over two thousand times onstage as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof (since 1967), and has sung in other stage musicals. He has issued many albums of folk songs and Broadway music, including In My Own Lifetime (2006), a CD of theater tunes. Now in his eighties, he still makes annual world tours as a singer.
Allan Sherman (originally Allan Copelon; mother’s maiden name, Sherman) was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1924. He wrote jokes and songs for comedians and television shows in the 1940s, and in the 1950s he helped create and produce the television game show I’ve Got a Secret. Sherman found sudden fame as a comic singer with his album My Son, the Folksinger (1962), followed by My Son, the Celebrity (1962) and My Son, the Nut (1963). He went on to have great success in major nightclubs, on television programs, and in theater concerts. The staples in his act were song parodies, consisting of familiar tunes combined with his own hilarious lyrics, often on Jewish topics. For example, in his first album “Frè re Jacques” becomes “Sarah Jackman.” The second album parodies “Won’t you come home, Bill Bailey?” with “Won’t you come home, Disraeli?” The third album contains his biggest hit, “Hello Muddah; Hello, Fadduh,” cast in the form of a complaining letter from a child in summer camp to his parents; the melody is based on the “Dance of the Hours” from Ponchielli’s 1876 opera La Gioconda. Sherman died in Los Angeles in 1973.
Mel Tormé (in full, Melvin Howard Tormé ) was born of Russian immigrants (his father’s original surname was Torma) in Chicago, Illinois, in 1925. He debuted as a professional singer at the age of four, and by the time he was six he was performing regularly on vaudeville stages. Tormé began his adult career by touring as a rhythm singer with Chico Marx’s orchestra (1942-43). In the mid-1940s he led his own group, the Mel-Tones, with whom he toured, recorded, and appeared in movies, such as Pardon My Rhythm (1944). A prolific songwriter, he wrote or cowrote many of his best-known works during the 1940s, including “A Stranger in Town” (1945), which he recorded, and “The Christmas Song” (1946), made famous through a recording by Nat King Cole. Tormé made some great recordings with Artie Shaw, notably “Sunny Side of the Street” (1946), and in 1949 his recording of “Careless Love” became a major hit. During this early part of his career, as a crooner of sentimental songs, he had a high, husky voice that led observers to dub him the Velvet Fog. Beginning in the mid-1950s, he leaned increasingly toward a cool-jazz approach to popular singing, and his voice deepened into a mellow baritone. Tormé was one of America’s greatest pop-jazz-swing vocal stylists, admired for his accurate pitch, pure tone, smooth timbre, elegant phrasing, and relaxed improvisational technique. He had a wide repertory, including ballads, swing numbers, and popular songs in jazz arrangements with scat singing. Among his many great albums are It’s a Blue World (1955), Lulu’s Back in Town (1956), Live at the Crossroads (1957), Mel Tormé Swings Schubert Alley (1960), Live at the Maisonette (1974), Tormé : A New Album (1978), An Evening with George Shearing and Mel Tormé (1982), The Great American Songbook (1994), and A & E: An Evening with Mel Tormé (1996). He died in Los Angeles in 1999.
Sammy Davis, Jr., was born a non-Jew in New York City in 1925. He performed for many years with his father and Will Mastin in vaudeville, in nightclubs, on television, and on Broadway. In 1957 the two older men retired and Sammy Davis, Jr., began a brilliant solo career. In 1958 Davis, an African-American, formally converted to Judaism. He sang in nightclubs; on television; in films, notably as Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess (1959); and on Broadway, as in the one-man show Sammy (1974). Davis’s success as a singer came through his energetic style, flexible voice, vocal carrying power, and ability to project the essence of a song in a unique way. His singles include “Hey There” (1954), “That Old Black Magic” (1955), “What Kind of Fool Am I?” (1962), and “The Candy Man” (1972). Among his albums are Just for Lovers (1955) and Sammy Davis, Jr.: A Live Performance of His Greatest Hits (1977). He died in Beverly Hills, California, in 1990.
Martha Schlamme (originally Martha Haftel) was born in Vienna, Austria, about 1925. She left Nazi Austria in 1938, lived in France and England, and then immigrated to the United States in 1948. Schlamme began her American career by singing on the borscht circuit. During the 1950s she developed an international reputation for her repertory of folk songs in twelve languages, especially German and Yiddish, which she performed in concerts and on recordings. She also sang in New York City stage productions, including Fiddler on the Roof (1968). Her first marriage was to a man named Hans Schlamme, whose surname she kept for professional use even after the union ended. Martha Schlamme is credited with raising folksinging to new artistic levels. She died in Jamestown, New York, in 1985.
Eddie Fisher (originally Edwin Fisher) was born of Russian immigrants in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1928. He sang on local Philadelphia radio shows as a child, appeared at New York City’s famed Copacabana nightclub when he was only eighteen, and performed on a tour with Eddie Cantor in 1949, which led to a recording contract for the young crooner. In the early 1950s he was America’s preeminent popular singer. His first hit record was “Thinking of You” (1950), followed by “Turn Back the Hands of Time” (1951), “I’m Yours” (1952), “Even Now” (1953), “Oh, My Papa” (1953), “I’m Always Hearing Wedding Bells” (1955), “On the Street Where You Live” (1956), and many others. He also hosted his own television series, Coke Time (1953-56). The shift in popular taste to rock music hurt his recording career, and his last commercially successful disc was “Games That Lovers Play” (1966). However, he long continued to be a major figure in nightclub work, especially in Las Vegas.
The famed duo known professionally as Steve and Eydie consists of Steve Lawrence (originally Sidney Leibowitz), born in New York City in 1935, and Eydie Gorme (originally Edith Gormezano), born in the same city in 1931. Lawrence, son of a cantor, sang at synagogue as a child. Gorme’s parents were Sephardic immigrants, her mother of Turkish ancestry and her father of Italian ancestry. Lawrence and Gorme sang together on Steve Allen’s television variety series Tonight! locally in New York City from 1953 to 1954 and then nationally from 1954 to 1957. During those years they also recorded some duets. In 1957 they married, but their career together was put on hold while Lawrence fulfilled his military duty. In 1960 they finally launched their duo stage career. Since then they have sung together on concert stages, in nightclubs, on their own television specials, in the Broadway musical Golden Rainbow (1968), and on recordings, such as the albums Together on Broadway (1967) and Alone Together (1990). They have also had recording careers as soloists. Lawrence had a major success with the single “Go Away, Little Girl” (1962), and he based his album Steve Lawrence Sings Sinatra (2003) on arrangements given to him by Sinatra himself. Gorme helped introduce a new popular style with “Blame It on the Bossa Nova” (1963). Having grown up in a family that spoke both English and Spanish, Gorme developed an interest in Latin pop, a field in which she has long been a leading performer. But Lawrence and Gorme remain best known for their work as a team. Still performing ballads and swing tunes today, they are helping keep alive the classic American popular-song repertory.
Joel Grey (originally Joel Katz) was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1932. He began his career by singing and dancing in English-Yiddish variety shows produced by his father, the comic musician Mickey Katz. By the early 1950s Grey was performing in a solo nightclub act in which his singing, dancing, and patter were likened to the style of Danny Kaye. Grey made his Broadway debut in The Littlest Revue (1956) and reached stardom by playing the master of ceremonies in the Broadway musical Cabaret (1966), a role he repeated with great success in the film version (1972). Later he played many dramatic roles on both stage and screen, but he also continued to sing, as in the Broadway musical The Grand Tour (1979), a television production of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Yeoman of the Guard (1984), another stage production of Cabaret (1987), and Broadway’s Chicago (1996) and Wicked (2003).
Tiny Tim (originally Herbert Butros Khaury) was born of immigrant parents, his father a Lebanese and his mother an Orthodox Jew from Poland, in New York City in 1932. He was an entertainer known for his eccentric costumes and behavior, his self-accompaniment on a ukulele, and his falsetto singing of “Tiptoe through the Tulips with Me.” His stage and television appearances were especially popular in the 1960s, and his album God Bless Tiny Tim (1968) was a great success. He died in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1996.
(Principal sources: Darryl Lyman, Great Jews in Music and Great Jews on Stage and Screen, Jonathan David Publishers, http://www.jdbooks.com)
