Announcing the new Klezmatics cd – just in time for your holiday pleasure!

The Klezmatics: Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanuka (Klezmatics Records, 2004)

In 1942, Woody Guthrie moved to Brooklyn and soon, through his mother-in-law, the renowned Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblat, he became involved with the Coney Island Jewish community. He wrote songs about Hanuka, about Jewish history and spiritual life and about World War II and the antifascist cause. After his death in 1967, these songs sat forgotten in archives. Lost for almost thirty years, Guthrie’s Jewish lyrics were discovered in 1998 by Woody’s daughter, Nora Guthrie. She was so inspired by what she found, she asked the Klezmatics to write new music for the lyrics. “Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanuka” is the first recorded release of this amazing material. Deftly intermingling klezmer with American folk and bluegrass, “Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hunaka” is destined to become a holiday classic for generations to come. This delightful collection of songs, “Hanuka’s Flame”, “Hanuka Gelt”, “The Many and the Few” and others, is among the best of Guthrie’s work, and the Klezmatics’ playful renditions cast a new light on the Hanuka tradition.
This limited edition collectors release comes in a jacket, hand printed at the Chicago Print Museum, that folds into a dreidel!

Available only via the internet at

http://www.tamizdat.org/rpm/?page=shop/flypage&product_id=KLE-1&ps_session=917471223271b9e703c9f41873dde1ab
Visit the Klezmatics website, www.klezmatics.com