Sometimes a hit single can have as powerful an impact as an entire album. Three new singles have become this winter’s staples. Are you humming along yet?
When YITZY WALDNER received a text from Shmuli Grunberger suggesting that the Jewish music world needs another song with the words from Tehillim 119, “Ma ahavti Torasecha, kol hayom hi sichasi” and “Zeidim helitzuni ad me’od, miToras’cha lo natisi,” it took him a few months to come up with the right concept. But once the melody and English lyrics came to him, things moved fast. Shmuli then reached out to Torah Umesorah, offering the song to be presented at their Presidents’ Conference the last week in December. They loved the idea, but that left only ten days to make it all happen: arrangements, recording instruments and vocals, mixing, mastering, and production. Eight days later, with two days to spare, the song was arranged by Avrumi Berko and recorded by Yitzy, together with additional vocals by child soloist Yehuda Grunberger, Shmuli’s son. (Yitzy didn’t feel well on the day he recorded it, but it was only in retrospect that he found out he’d been singing through Covid.) The song, named “TORAH’S WHO I AM,” was first presented at the Presidents’ Conference, and received almost 11,000 streams in its first week.
Not only does ZANVIL WEINBERGER have the vocal ability of a star soloist and the charisma to ignite his crowd, he also has the range and voice control usually associated with chazzanus. That’s why he’s the perfect fit for Hershy Weinberger’s composition “BORCHU,” which incorporates musical themes from the traditional Yom Tov evening “Borchu” — he brings the familiar chazzan-congregation interaction into a fresh musical experience. As his voice resonates with artistry and control in the niggun-only intro to Borchu, he’s answered by full Malchus choir vocals. Two months ago, Zanvil’s son was taken ill with an unknown virus while he was away working in New York. The song “Borchu” is dedicated to thanking Hashem for his son’s complete recovery.
Doni Gross is used to fresh and exciting ideas coming his way in voice notes from JOEY NEWCOMB, but when he heard how Joey sent the high part of a song in just one note, even he was surprised. “I thought it was cool, and suggested maybe we keep the whole song in just one note. Joey wrote a three-part song where each part is one note, and we included guitar and sax solos of just one note,” Doni says of Joey’s ONE NOTE NIGGUN, admitting that he put various harmonies behind the one-note melodies of each section to enrich the niggun so it wouldn’t lack musicality.
Joey came up with English words that offer food for thought on the one-note concept. “Sometimes you may feel like one little note who’s insignificant… When you put yourself in Klal Yisrael you’ll start to hear that song, and even though you’re only one little note, your note becomes so strong….” Easy to learn and catch on to (there’s only one note), the song, since its release just a few weeks ago, is being shared and sung at kumzitzes and yeshivah events.
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