Leo Fuld - Eretz Zavat Halav (Milk and Honey) (audio)

Leo Fuld - Eretz Zavat Halav (Milk and Honey)
from the album "My Yiddishe Mama"

Leo Fuld (1912 - 1997)
He is still generally recognized as one of the truly great interprets of the Yiddish Song. His admirers and close friends included such celebrities as Maurice Chevalier, Frank Sinatra, Charles Aznavour, Frankie Laine and George Ulmer.
He was born, as one of eight children into a modest family on 29 October 1912 in Rotterdam, Holland. A scholarship enabled him ti enter the Dutch Israelic Seminary in Amsterdam and became a precentor. Still a boy, only sixteen years of age, he was sent out every Sabbath to lead the Jewish congregations of small Dutch towns. Not quite a year later he successfully auditioned for the VARA Broadcasting Company and did a great number of Broadcasts for a full year, often several times a week. Leo Fuld was only eighteen when he was discovered by Eric Maschwitz, at the time Variety Director of the BBC in London. He became the very first Dutch singer performing for the BBC microphones and the success of his initial program led to a contract for a series of ten Broadcasts. It was during one of thesethat Leo Fuld's vocal artistry was noticed by Jack Hylton, leader of one the most popular orchestras in the era. Hylton immediately called the station relaying the broadcast and invited Fuld for a live audition at the Empire Theatre in Manchester. A two-year contract with Hylton involved a tour through Englandas well as of the Continent. After a year with the Band an attractive offer from Clifford Fisher - who had discovered Edith Piaf - made him decide to leave the Hylton band and depart for the United States, where he starred at the French Casino in New York in 1936. A standing room only crowd - comprising many show buisness celebrities (no less a performer than Al Jolson came to hear him nearly every day for about a week) - acclaimed the appearance of a new singer who had just come of age. During the war Leo Fuld foundhimself busy producing short-wave programs, in cooperation with Hendrik Willem van Loon and Max Tak, beamed by Station WRUL (Boston) at Nazi-occupied Holland and the Dutch merchant fleet. He returned to his native country in 1948, faced with the task to make a fresh start in his career as vocal performer. After a series of American-styled shows at the Amsterdam Tuschinsky Theatre he went to London, where he wrote the song "Where can I go" (Wo ahin soll ich geh'n). His recording of this tune sold over one and a half million copies all over the world. In the wake of his worldwide hit, he performed in New York, Hollywood, Chicago, Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Santiago. He spent three more years in England, touring the country and starring at the London Palladium. Next came guest-appearances in the television shows of Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra in the States. Then he went to France, wjere he performed at the Alhambra in Paris, appeared at the Olympia Theatre and featured on the same bill with Edith Piaf for fourteen consecutive weeks. Besides he made a tour through the Orient, playing in such cities as Cairo, Alexandria, Beirut as well as Casablanca, Algiers and Tunis. He has had concert recitals in Israel on no less than fifteen tours in this country. In whatever country he sung, Leo Fuld always felt quite at home. The repertoire of Yiddish melodies covers a field almost as wide as that which he has managed to reach through his authentic art of singing. His performances of the classic Yiddish folk song as well as of the modern Jewish song of musical comidy fame, refelct the ethnic and dramatic influences that have contributed to his background. The wide variety of songs as presented on this "In Memoriam"-Album, shows the influences of the various countries through which the Jewish people have wandered through the ages. From the late eighties, the unforgettable Leo Fuld retired in Amsterdam, where he was stuck by a sudden heart-attack on June 10th, 1997.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Leo Fuld
• Rotterdam
• Holland
• Netherlands
• yiddish
• jiddisch
• erez zalvat halav
• Yiddishkayt
• Yiddishkeit

[Dolly1366]

The legend that was Leo,the last of the great yiddish singer's singing a Utopian vision of the beautifully dangerous and alluring Israel...

[Erczetyn]

Beatiful song ,music ,Shalom Israel !!

[SoRollingStoned]

love it!