Going with the Flow

The vintage Journeys series never fails to take listeners for a ride down the pathways of the past, the present, and the soul. After an 18-year hiatus, the release of JOURNEYS VOLUME FIVE is almost a rebirth of the genre of thought-provoking songs with a touch of whimsy, but with one difference. Fans who were expecting to hear vocals primarily from ABIE ROTENBERG are instead treated to an all-star cast of singers, from Shulem Lemmer to Avraham Fried, from the Maccabeats to Baruch Levine.

“Much has changed in Jewish music over the past two decades,” Abie explains. “Unlike years ago, songs in English have become commonplace and so many of today’s wonderful vocalists are not only comfortable singing in English, they are masters of the craft. These contemporary artists do a better job than I ever could. Although I do have my moments on this album, at heart, I consider myself to be a songwriter, much more than a performer. It was far more important to me that the songs be performed better and reach a wider audience than to hear the sound of my own voice.”

Abie notes that the greatest challenge of bringing in all these new voices was to appropriately match the individual talents with the right tracks. “I believe we succeeded in doing so,” he says.

For years following Journeys Volume IV’s release in 2004, Abie had tried to write more Journeys-style material, but found it just wasn’t working. Then in 2018, his granddaughter, visiting for Pesach, shared the story of the Skulener and Vizhnitzer Rebbes’ post-Holocaust matzah exchange. (The first Pesach after the war, the Skulener Rebbe managed to bake a small amount of matzah, yet while each person was allotted just one matzah, the Vizhnitzer Rebbe’s son brazenly asked that three be given to his father. Right before Pesach, the Vizhnitzer sent two of the matzos back — he knew the Skulener hadn’t saved any for himself.) This powerful story lifted the veteran composer out of his writer’s block and restarted the engine.