Sunday, October 12, 2008

"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" & Klezmer

Feeling broke, maybe need to borrow seven billion dollars? (That's 7,000,000,000 dimes.)

One of the biggest and now signature hits of the Depression Era was Yip Harburg's "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" A Russian Jew, Harburg's roots were the traditional secular Klezmer music of East European Jewry. (See Wikipedia.) With its plaintive melodies it will remind those unfamiliar with it of such Broadway classsics as "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof. Here is the 30's anthem:

Allison Moorer, Brother Can You Spare a Dime:



And click here for Budapest Klezmer Band I (Untitled)

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