Product Review

Documents the influence of Jewish music on American popular song.

In Funny, It Doesn’t Sound Jewish, Jack Gottlieb chronicles how Jewish songwriters and composers transformed the popular music of mid-twentieth-century America. Although many critics, historians, and musicians have alluded to the Jewish influence on American popular song, this is the first book ever to support such assertions with comprehensive musical examples. Drawing on a variety of historical and archival sources, as well as his own experiences as a composer of synagogue, popular, and concert music, Gottlieb carefully and compellingly documents how a minority culture infused a majority culture, enriched it, and still retained its own identity. He does this with the support of a companion CD that includes previously unrecorded songs as well as some surprising rarities performed by the likes of Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, and Leonard Bernstein.