Born into the Business

Singer YISROEL (Sruly) WERDYGER, son of industry maven and music producer MENDY WERDYGER

THE MOMENT I KNEW I MADE MY FATHER PROUD

I hope I’m constantly making him proud of me, but one early memory was when the Gerrer Rebbe, the Pnei Menachem ztz”l, was in America in 1994. My father conducted the choir in honor of the Rebbe, and I was a child soloist.

THE SOUNDS I TOOK FROM MY FATHER’S SHABBOS TABLE

A Shabbos table atmosphere is actually comprised of many components, not only of how the father in the family wants it or expects it to be. It depends on the age of the children, the size of the family, the nature of the children, and the family makeup of girls and boys. I’m the oldest child in the family, there were no married family members when I was growing up, and I loved to sing at the Shabbos meal. Obviously, the dynamics of that changed over the years, with new family members coming into my parents’ home. We sang mostly Gerrer and Modzhiter tunes. In my own family, the zemiros are somewhat less formal, but not all that different. We sing a lot of Chabad niggunim, some contemporary tunes, as well as many traditional Shabbos zemiros from Vizhnitz and the like.

MY FATHER’S MUSICAL INFLUENCE ON ME

I actually sound very similar to my father, and when I started out, people would comment on that. There’s no question that my singing was influenced heavily by my father in many ways, and by extension I was also influenced by my grandfather, Chazzan Dovid Werdyger a”h, and of course by my uncle Mordechai Ben David. I’ve heard people say that they hear the Werdyger “hartz” in my singing. I think what they mean is a certain style of expression, hard to define in words, that characterises how our family sings. It’s a humbling task for me to be able to continue the legacy.

MY EARLIEST MUSICAL MEMORY OF MY FATHER

I was a very young boy when I accompanied my father to the studio while he was recording one of his Chaveirim albums. I was awed by the way the music sounded in the studio and how everything came together on a huge two-inch reel — equipment which is basically extinct today.