Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Talking of stealing melodies...

Tonight we went to hear an up-and-coming Israeli artist, Yasmin Levy, who sings Sephardi songs, mainly in Ladino. She has a stunningly beautiful voice and a gentle stage presence and will be singing at Carenegie Hall in December.
In any case, towards the end she began singing a song in Ladino which I immediately recognized as our family’s favorite tune for Tzur Mishelo. Sure enough, she soon slipped into the Hebrew Zemer. Much to my surprise, with a bit of research, I discovered that this tune was originally a Ladino folk song – a love song, in fact – which over the years “has been incorporated into this zemer of Shabbat.” Its original name was Los Biblicos. Anyone know anything more on this?

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