Mixed Blessings

Several decades back, in 1986, Suki and I were in a Brooklyn studio recording Around the Year Volume 2 with Avraham Fried. We were working on the wedding medley, featuring Ben Zion Shenker’s “Sameach Tisamach,” when Suki came up with the idea of incorporating a slide whistle to add a little more zing. Now, there are two types of slide whistles. A professional-grade song whistle costs about $30 in a music store, and the other slide whistle — a child’s toy — can be purchased for 99 cents at most toy stores.

First I called Sam Ash Music in Manhattan, but they were out of slide whistles, so I figured I’d try some toy stores around the neighborhood for the cheap version, but also no luck. Then, I called Toys R Us on Flatbush Avenue, and they told me that yes, they had one left. I was so excited, I told the saleswoman that I would be right over. She had put it aside for me and, seeing my big smile when I got there, commented, “Wow! You’re a really good father to go out of your way just to make your kid happy!” I should have kept my mouth shut but instead I told her that I wasn’t married, and that the slide whistle was actually for me. I’ll never forget the look on her face when she heard that.

Another inspired improvisation came when we were recording Gershon Veroba’s Variations #3 album and doing a song called “In the Middle of the Night,” about a Hatzolah volunteer who craves sleep but knows he had a higher mission. We needed the sound of an ambulance siren, which you can generally get easily online, but the Internet was down and we were on a clock. The engineer asked, “Ding, you’re in Hatzolah! Don’t you have a siren in your car?” He was right. I jumped into my car, drove it up to the studio’s window, and ran my siren. I can’t imagine what the neighbors were thinking.

Then there was the first Uncle Moishy album we ever recorded, back in 1979 — long before the Internet and its available sound effects. We were recording the “Kosher” song, and I have to thank my dear brother, Yosef Chaim, who mimicked the sounds of all the kosher animals for us. I never knew he was so talented.