Track Listing

1. Come When I Call You
2. Mermaid's Avenue
3. Headdy Down
4. Gonna Get Through This World
5. Pass Away
6. Holy Ground
7. Goin' Away To Sea
8. From Here On In
9. Wheel Of Life
10. Condorbird
11. Orange Blossom Ring
12. Heaven

Product Details

• Released on: 2006-07-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Album Description
The story of Wonder Wheel is a glorious tale of happenstance and discovery, populated by luminaries from different worlds and different eras.

In the pantheon: American folk icon Woody Guthrie and world music superstars the Klezmatics, Woody’s daughter, Nora Guthrie, maestro Itzhak Perlman—whose chance meeting with Nora helped plant the seed for the project, Celtic vocalist Susan McKeown, and producers GoodandEvil (Sex Mob, Elysian Fields, Felix Da Housecat).

These Coney Island-wrought lyrics add a less-known urban dimension to a man seen as the avatar of dust- bowl ballads. But, like thousands of his songs, they were left unrecorded, their music forgotten.

The result, seven years in the making, is Wonder Wheel—a record Nora describes as "Just as my father would have wanted." The album reflects Woody’s political stance and social agenda into a larger, global mirror, and brings a 20th century American figurehead to a 21st-century audience. Woody’s lyrics—set to music that’s filled with Eastern European, klezmer, Latin, Celtic, Afro-Caribbean and folk flavors—take on a universal life of their own. As GoodandEvil’s Danny Blume notes, the music is "an intense combination of the familiar and the exotic. But above all, it’s completely natural, all-encompassing, and intensely human."

Amazon.com
At first glance, the wedding of newly discovered lyrics by Okie folk legend Woody Guthrie to melodies by the Klezmatics--a band that blends the sounds and images of Yiddish culture with world music and American traditions--seems incongruous, at best. But there is method in the madness of executive producer and Woody's daughter, Nora Guthrie. In the 1940s, the Guthries family lived in the heavily Jewish borough of Brooklyn, where their visitors included not only such activist pals as Pete Seeger, but Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt--Guthrie's mother-in-law--who shared his devotion to message and idealism. The troubadour's dusted-off words, particularly on "Mermaid Avenue," show his constant awareness and appreciation of Jewish culture, as well as his predictable fixation with the fleetingness of life in a time of war ("Pass Away," "Goin' Away to Sea"). Yet there is a new gentleness and renewed love of poetry in many of these pieces, especially in the closing song, "Heaven," which reflects Guthrie's continuing social consciousness, i.e., labor struggles and the homeless. The Klezmatics, on their first English-language album, push Woody's folkie form into the 21st century, with melodies built around Middle Eastern or Slavic frameworks--put to best use on the delicate lullaby "Heddy Down" and the affirming "Wheel of Life." --Alanna Nash

About the Artist
The Klezmatics play soul-stirring Jewish roots music for our time, recreating klezmer in arrangements and compositions that combine Jewish identity and mysticism with a contemporary zeitgeist and a postmodern aesthetic. Since their founding in New York City's East Village in 1986, the Klezmatics have celebrated the ecstatic nature of Yiddish music with works which are by turns wild, spiritual, provocative, reflective and danceable.

The vitality and joy of the Klezmatics' music has uplifted audiences around the world since their inception. They've reached millions of television viewers on PBS GREAT PERFORMANCES (with Itzhak Perlman), LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN, CBS NIGHTWATCH, FOX AFTER BREAKFAST, the BBC's RHYTHMS OF THE WORLD and MTV NEWS. The band provided composed music for Judith Helfand's documentary A HEALTHY BABY GIRL which was broadcast on the PBS television series P.O.V., while talk show host Rosie O'Donnell's TV special KIDS ARE PUNNY combined an original Klezmatics cartoon score with the voice of comedian Jackie Mason. For radio they have recorded sessions for the BBC's JOHN PEEL SHOW and regular guests on National Public Radio's NEW SOUNDS LIVE, SOUNDCHECK and A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION with Garrison Keillor. They performed their score for the PILOBOLUS DANCE THEATRE'S recent work, "Davenen," which premiered to capacity audiences at Washington, DC's Kennedy Center and continues to be presented internationally. In the summer of 2001 the band, together with Israeli singer Chava Alberstein and Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary), appeared in concert on the site of Berlin's historic New Synagogue. The resulting television program, VOICES: A MUSICAL CELEBRATION, aired nationally over PBS, across Europe and in Israel.

Customer Reviews

An inspired cycle of song - and Grammy Winner!
This latest CD from the Klezmatics comes as a happy event. The starting point for the album is a dozen lyrics left unset by Woody Guthrie, unmistakably infused with his activist, humanity-embracing spirit. The Klezmatics were entrusted with fashioning songs around these lyrics by Guthrie's daughter, Nora, who produces the album. The band rises to the occasion with music that takes full measure of Guthrie's sentiments -- while remaining true to their own musical roots, introducing colors both subtle and vivid, blending nostalgia and vision, and breaking new ground with tuneful abandon. The words and music are as though woven together, not a seam in view. In lesser hands the premise--lost lyrics wedded to new artists--might have resulted in a stale hommage, but the Klezmatics have long since shown themselves to be masters of the collaborative art.

This is music full of life and light. As a collection it is both kaleidoscopic and cohesive, giving the album a delightfully natural flow. By any standard it ranks with the best of the band's earlier work, notably "The Well." Each melody is indelible, resonating in the mind and heart. It would be a slight to say that the great folk troubadour has been honored, resurrected, or reinvented by the Klezmatics. It sounds, merely and simply, like a collaboration - something natural and unforced and workmanlike, where the proof is in the pudding. Perhaps most surprising is the canny "pop" touch that makes this collection as winning and accessible as it is adventurous.

The songs are all so fine I can't resist commenting on each one. "Come When I Call You" is a beautiful, haunting war-weary song that is all the more powerful for being plainspoken. First time I heard "Mermaid's Avenue" I immediately thought of Neil Sedaka, and this infectious song would have had an impressive run on the 60s pop charts. "Headdy Down" is a lullaby shared by father and mother, to a melody that manages to be both soothing and funky. The Klezmatics score big with "Gonna Get Through This World" - a quietly impassioned manifesto with a beguiling blend of Celtic and Yiddish influences. "Pass Away" too has a Middle-Eastern flavor, sinuously wound into a quasi-psychedelic chant; it perfectly captures the mystical sense of the words. To my ears, "Holy Ground" is the closest the album comes to a melody that Guthrie might have written, an American spiritual, satisfying in its simplicity. Then comes "Goin' Away to Sea," which is one of the two full-throttle klezmer numbers on the album, a jaunty shanty sung by a soldier keeping his Jewish identity close to heart as he sails off to fight in WWII. From the evidence of the dedication, "From Here On In" was written as a wedding song; so beautifully touching it would be a benediction on any union. "The Wheel of Life" is another klezmer whirlwind, filled with exuberant, entrancing dissonances. "Condorbird" is perhaps the oddest song I've heard from the Klezmatics - an immensely likable tune seemingly written for mariachi oompah band. "Orange Blossom Ring" gives lead singer Lorin Sklamberg an unforgettable love song, remarkable only for its beautiful and not for its homoeroticism. "Heaven" is perhaps the most unexpected song on the record - an exhilarating and unashamed anthem, and the perfect valedictory to an album you're not ready to have end.

While the arrangements are all solid and tremendous fun, the performances rely not at all on the instrumental virtuosity that is one of the band's calling cards. Their sense of when to let simplicity speak for itself and when to jazz things up is perfectly judged. Their guest artists, notably Susan McKeown on vocals and Boo Reiners on banjo, make welcome contributions. The Klezmatics are renowned on the world music circuit, but with this entry they are likely to find a wider audience. And, not least of all, what a joy to discover here a sheaf of worthy new Woody Guthrie songs!

The producers have seen to it that the sonic perspective is clear, immediate, and natural. The CD booklet is exemplary and denotes the love that went into this project, with engaging notes and presentation of text and graphics.

Gonna get through this world, the best I can...with a GRAMMY AWARD!
Beautiful folk songs. Joyful and fun... this album is like taking a trip to Coney Island in the 1950's with your best modern folky friends. I read a review where it quoted Pete Seeger saying this was "a piece of genius." That can't be bad.
:)

beautiful
This album is absolutely incredible... it takes you on an amazing journey, and covers the range of human emotion. Plus, nominated for a grammy!