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Thursday night we played one set opening for the Donny Simonds Band.
The audience response was great; they seemed to love everything they
heard. On Friday we took the whole night playing two long sets to a full
house with smoked meat being consumed out on the patio in the 70 degree
night. We brought our friend Wolf Krakowski up for a song in the first
set and them two in the second set and the audience went nuts and he did
a third. And Wolf sings in Yiddish. This was a great audience.
Saturday morning we all headed up to Gainesville for a show at the
Peforming Arts Center at the University. Another full house and a great
show with Wolf. It was a fine trip and except for the plane catching
fire on the way home everything went smoothly.
Gainesville, FL Concert 11/15/08
J.D., Gainesville, FL
(Personal correspondence)
I thoroughly enjoyed your
performance in Gainesville, Florida. I especially loved the sound of
your voice and also how you told stories in between the
songs. The Ladies and the Lonesome Brothers were great, too. I loved it
all.
You have a very warm and charming smile and it was a pleasure meeting
you. I will surely come to see you perform whenever there is another
chance. I was so very happy for the opportunity to hear your wonderful
performance this time around.
Your voice and music have comforted that empty feeling in my soul!
Thank you and bless you always.
One of a Kind, December 21, 2008
From
Amazon.com
I saw Wolf Krakowski, the Lonesome Brothers and his backup singers in
concert in Gainesville FL. It was like entering a strange and spooky
world - the voices of a language almost never heard anymore, set to
bluesy rhythms that rock gently.
Now I own this album (Goyrl: Destiny) and the translation in the liner
notes are testament to the pain, sadness and regret that are heard so
plainly in Krakowski's voice. Songs of regrets over the loss of family,
of parents treated badly, a calf on its way to slaughter, a thief who
longs to change. Folk songs of enforced poverty and conscription.
I love this album, and every time I listen to it, Krakowski's voice
seems more expressive.
This album is a labor of love, made in defiance against a world that may
soon forget the circumstances that produced it, but the spiritual
longings are still relevant and beautifully expressed.
-By Ayalablu "SandHillGarden" (Florida)
Celebrate Brooklyn
2007 Concert Announcement
View photo album
Chasing The Fat Man
by Mark Rubin
Wolf Krakowski, along with his fine guitar slinger
Jim Armenti, put in a solid set with me on the electric bass
Read full review....
Yiddish Life Is A Carnival
Wolf Krakowski and Fraidy Katz sang a kind of gritty, rocking Yiddish
art music.
Read full review...
From NW Source
CrissCross44
Here's my summary, which will make it clear why I'll be first in line
for my season pass next summer. Everything you wanted to hear in Yiddish
music (until next year, at the very earliest): Frank London's Yiddish
Carnival. But it took a dude in a black hat and shades, Wolf Krakowski,
to steal the show.
Celebrate
Brooklyn Concert Photos
by
Betty Blade
Wolf Krakowski in New York
by Itzik Gottesman
Yiddish Forverts (Forward), July 18, 2003
On June nineteenth, Yiddish rock and roll singer Wolf Krakowski and his
band stopped by the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan. As the
sun was setting on the banks of the Hudson River, the singer performed a
number of Yiddish songs, many unknown to the audience. One of the
merits of Krakowski's recordings and performances is the fact that
one doesn't hear the same old retread songs; he has sought out and
acquired an interesting repertoire. The musicians, including guitarist
Jim Armenti masterfully combined the Yiddish melodies with
American rhythms. A female vocal trio backed up Krakowski's
singing.
Not only were the songs new, but so were Krakowski's interpretations.
For example, the thief's song "Khvel Shoyn Mer Nisht
Ganvenen" ("I'll Never Steal Again"), which is usually
sung cheerfully upbeat, was transformed by the singer into an American
slow blues that depicted the melancholy of the Jewish thief. In
Krakowski's singing we hear an attempt to join the African-American
blues tradition with that of Jewish folksong.
After the performance we noticed that not everyone in the
audience understood Krakowski¹s approach to Yiddish song. Does he
contribute anything Jewish to the songs or do they become transformed
into American songs? As Krakowski¹s first CD is aptly titled
"Gilgul" ("Transmigrations"), I would think he
would have enjoyed the discussion.
--Translated
from the Yiddish by A.N.
"Electric shtetl-rock"
von Kristina Maroldt
Aufbau ,New York - Berlin,
July
10, 2003
"Der
Sanger und Gitarrist Wolf Krakowski verbindet traditionelle
jiddische Lider mit Elementen moderner amerikanischer Musik."
Wolf Krakowski: Yidishe Neshome (Jewish Soul)
By Mae Rockland Tupa
University of Connecticut, March 26, 2003
I wish I could have brought
my =tate= to the UConn campus at
Storrs last week to hear
Wolf Krakowski and his band. Daddy would have
loved it. He came to
America from the Ukraine at 14 and became a glazier,
but his heart was always in
the theatre. He met my Mama at the Yiddish
Theatre on Second Avenue,
and as soon as I was old enough, he took me to as many performances as
he could afford. That was a while ago. My sons also
love to make music, they
are fluent in Spanish rather than Yiddish, and play
blues, jazz, and rock
rather then klezmer or Yiddish show tunes. When Wolf
and The Lonesome Brothers
made music at UConn, time telescoped and all of the generations were
there. Read full
review.....
Wolf Krakowski at the National Yiddish Book
Center
by Seth Rogovoy
Amherst, Mass., December 20, 1999
My family and I, as well as more than a hundred
other concertgoers packed into a standing-room-only theater at National
Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., Sunday afternoon, enjoyed a
remarkable performance by Wolf Krakowski and his band.
Read
full review......
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