“With Benny, it’s never just a day at the office— he sings it like he means it”
Six years is an eternity in current events nowadays, and also in Jewish music. But while the Jewish world has heard plenty from BENNY FRIEDMAN during the past few years, including several popular singles and hit oldies albums, he has not released a full-length album of new songs since, as the promo of his newest release, BE GEBENTCHED, puts it, before people ever heard of coronavirus, AI was a nickname for a basketball player, and England was still part of the EU.
Benny and his producer, Doni Gross, started working on an album of original songs over four years ago, but Doni explains that “When you’re making an original album, the material is everything, so finding the greatest songs is eighty percent of the work, and it can’t be rushed.” Also, Benny says, they kept getting distracted by other projects, including his It Sounds like Chanukah and It Sounds Like Purim playlist albums.
Some of the concepts and ideas came straight from Benny’s heart, and he and Doni spent hours upon hours working on music together, which they both say were fun times. “With Benny, it’s never just a day at the office — he sings it like he means it,” says Doni.
Although Doni is known to have completed some projects in record time under tight deadlines, he says that this time, it was a leisurely creative process with plenty of opportunities to take the music in different directions, chop and change the arrangements, and incorporate different styles and genres.
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