Where are the Pennywhistlers?

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 06:08 PM

Point taken, Jack.

The Pennywhistlers album, of happy memory (so few of their recordings transferred to CD),
listed the song as "Tudora".

I recognized the tune, years later, when the television was broadcasting a commercial advertisement for I know not what make of automobile;
and the singers were clearly not the Pennywhistlers, but one of the Bulgarian women's groups.
And I thought: so it has come to this.

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 05:32 PM

Thanks! the full name "Polegnala ye Todora" leads me to much more info.

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST,John Bowden (not a typo!)
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 03:58 PM

Sorry, guest above was me

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 03:57 PM

The words, transliteration and translation/paraphrase of Tudora are here:

http://www.omniglot.com/songs/bcc/polegnala.php

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST,John Bowden (not a typo!)
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 06:25 AM

Sorry, the clickies didn't work - try again!

https://www.shazam.com/track/61199769/tudora

(go down to "show more")

https://www.discogs.com/The-Pennywhistlers-Folksongs-Of-Eastern-Europe/release/2781602

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST,John Bowden (not a typo!)
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 06:22 AM

Jack: there's a 30-second sample of Tudora by the Pennywhistlers here: a href="https://www.shazam.com/track/61199769/tudora">https://www.shazam.com/track/61199769/tudora

It's from their Nonesuch LP Folksongs of Eastern Europe - the first LP of theirs I bought, with some of their "classics"!

a href="https://www.discogs.com/The-Pennywhistlers-Folksongs-Of-Eastern-Europe/release/2781602">https://www.discogs.com/The-Pennywhistlers-Folksongs-Of-Eastern-Europe/release/2781602


Unfortunately the youtube video isn't available.

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 05:34 AM

I hadn't heard of "Tudora" before so I just tried to find it. Got two YouTube videos, by Balkansky and ArHai, which are completely different pieces, both horribly over-arranged. Since Tudora is an actual place (in Botosani, Romania) most of the non-video links I can find are about its regional administration. If it was actually famous I would have expectd to find more, and very easily.

Can you point me to the song you mean? - preferably both a video/soundfile and a score with the words?

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Jun 17 - 06:41 PM

The long-playing vinyl album was in my family's house,
which started with "Run Come See Jerusalem."
This is a puzzler to me now,
as I see that song listed on a long-playing album that begins with something else altogether, also a Pennywhistlers album. It would seem that there was more than one edition of that particular recording.

In any event, that was my introduction to the hypnotic "Tudora," that has become so famous thanks to the Bulgarian ensembles.

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST,John Bowden (not a typo!)
Date: 21 Jun 17 - 07:56 AM

Happily the Rainbow Quest recordings are back on youtube now.

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST,Brian Grayson
Date: 21 Jun 17 - 07:43 AM

I have three of their albums:

1. The Pennywhistlers - Folksongs of Eastern Europe (Vinyl, Nonesuch H-72007 USA 1965)

2. A Cool Day and Crooked Corn (Vinyl, Nonesuch H-72024, 1967)

3. The Pennywhistlers (1963, CD, Folkways FW 8773, 1963/2007 - NOT the same as #1)

They also recorded Songs of the Earth (with Theodore Bikel) (Elektra)

Bill Vanaver recorded on some of these.(Google 'Vanaver Caravan' or 'Bill and Lydia Vanaver'

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Jun 17 - 07:08 PM

Post 15 on this thread, dated 17 November 2015,
references an issue of "Jewish Currents" which can be seen online (Yumpu).
The recently deceased Alice Kogan, née Rothman, had a two-page memorial in that periodical, dated March-April 2009.

Went back just now (to Yumpu) and looked again, now that more of the
Pennywhistlers' names are known to me.

That page of names, identifying those who remembered Mrs. Kogan --
"We mourn the loss of our dear friend ALICE" --
is a long one, and it includes these names.

Dina Bray
Francine Brown
Shelley Cook
Joyce Gluck
Deborah Lesser
Bobbi London          (mis-labeled in some places as Boldsi London)

NOT least, Ethel Raim

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Jun 17 - 06:52 PM

On the webpages for a "Camp Kinderland" in the Tri-State area,
there is a candid photograph of two older women,
identified as
"Dina (Suller) Bray"
and
"Alice (Rothman) Kogan"

and, FOR SHAME! I left somebody out!

SHEILA GREENBERG was also a Pennywhistlers singer, her name is included on at least some of their albums.

There was also a singer named Bobbi London who sang with the Pennywhistlers, although maybe not on all of the albums.

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Jun 17 - 06:40 PM

Anyone know of a Dina Suller Bray? Dina Bray, maiden name Suller?

This appears to be the real name of Dina Silberman, by which name she is sometimes listed on Pennywhistlers Records.

It seems that Mrs. Bray is still in New York and amongst the living, although like her fellow surviving Pennywhistlers, she is a senior citizen now.

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Nov 15 - 02:15 PM

Alice Rothman Kogan
July 11, 1938 -- January 20, 2009

from Jewish Currents, March-April 2009

a list of names offering condolences includes:

Joyce Gluck, Shelley Cook, Francine Brown, Ethel Raim, Deborah Lesser.

(Wonder what happened to Dina Silberman)

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 06:34 PM

While we're at it, let's honor the other members by naming them. Besides Ethel Raim:

Joyce Gluck

Dina Silberman

Deborah Lesser

Francine Brown

Alice Kogan

Shelley Cook

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Nov 15 - 06:24 PM

"Ethel Raim, who sounds like a one-women 'Mystere des Voix Bulgares.' "

critique dated December 1995. New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/20/arts/in-performance-dance-026794.html

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 12:53 PM

The Archive
Biography
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Remembering Alan

Ethel Raim

By Ellen Harold
Ethel Raim is Artistic Director of New York's Center for Traditional Music and Dance (CTMD), one of the nation's preeminent traditional arts organizations, and has researched ethnic music and worked closely with community-based traditional for almost five decades.
Raim has also had a distinguished career as a performer, recording artist, music editor, and singing teacher. In 1963 she co-founded and was musical director of the Pennywhistlers, who were among the first to bring traditional Balkan and Russian Jewish singing traditions to the folk music world. In the early sixties, The Pennywhistlers shared the bill with artists such as Theodore Bikel, Leonard Cohen, Reverend Gary Davis, Bob Dylan, and Jean Ritchie. Their LPs: The Pennywhistlers (Folkways Records FW-8773, 1963), The Pennywhistlers: A Cool Day and Crooked Corn (Nonesuch H-72024, 1965), and Songs of the Earth (with Theodore Bikel) (Elektra), helped inspire dozens of women's vocal ensembles.
From 1965 to 1975 Raim was music editor of Sing Out! magazine and its publishing imprint, Oak Press. Among the books for which she edited the music were Guy and Candie Carawan and Julius Lester's, We Shall Overcome: Songs of the Southern Freedom Movement (1963); Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Songs of the Freedom Movement (1966); the Carawans' Ain't I Got a Right to the Tree of Life (1968 with Bob Yellin); and Peggy Seeger's Folk Songs of Peggy Seeger: 88 Traditional Ballads and Songs (1964).
In 1968, as a researcher on Slavic Cultures for the Smithsonian Institution's Folklife Festival. Raim and Martin Koenig conducted field research in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Music from that trip was included in the highly regarded Village Music of Bulgaria, a two-LP set that Raim and Koenig produced in the early '70s for Nonesuch Records (twenty-five years before the CD Le Mystère des voix bulgares, became an international breakout best seller). Alan Lomax, Carl Sagan, and Ann Druyan chose "Izlel e Delyu Haydutin" by Valya Balkanska (accompanied by bagpipe players Lazar Kanevski and Stephan Zahmanov) from this collection for inclusion in the Voyager Golden Record that was sent into outer space in 1977.
In 1975 Raim joined Koenig as Co-Director of the Balkan Folk Arts Center. In addition to sponsoring festivals, tours, and activities, the center produced numerous recordings of Greek, Serbian, and Bulgarian singers, and a film, The Popovich Brothers of South Chicago. In 1981, as its mission broadened to include the diverse immigrant communities of the New York City area, it was renamed the Ethnic Folk Arts Center and in 1998 it became the Center for Traditional Music and Dance.
As Director of the CTMD, Raim has curated and overseen the production of hundreds of artistic presentations and has developed many of the innovative program models for which CTMD is best known, including their Community Cultural Initiatives - designed to establish and nurture community-based documentation, presentation, education, and cultural preservation in New York's immigrant communities. Under her leadership, the Center has become one of America's leading proponents of what Alan Lomax called "cultural equity," the right of every community or ethnic group to express and sustain its distinctive cultural heritage.
Numerous performers associated with the Center have been recipients of the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Award, the nation's highest award for traditional arts, among them: Adam Popovich, Serbian Tamburitza musician, 1982; Dave Tarras, Jewish klezmer clarinetist (1984); Martin Mulvihill, Irish fiddler, 1994; Pericles Haklias, Epirot Greek clarinetist, 1985; Ilias Kementzides, Pontic Greek lyra player, 1989; Giuseppe and Raffaela DeFranco, traditional Calabrian musicians, 1990; Jack Coen, Irish flute player, 1991; Fatima Kuinova, Bukharan (Central Asian) Jewish singer, 1992; Simon Shaheen, Palestinian violinist and oud player, 1994; Liz Carroll, Irish Fiddler, 1994; Donny Golden, Irish stepdancer, 1995; Juan Gutierrez, Puerto Rican bomba and plena musician, 1996; Mick Moloney, Irish musician, 1999 Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, Yiddish poet, songwriter and folk singer, 2005; Sidiki Conde, Guinean dancer and musician, 2007; and Sue Yeon Park, Korean dancer, 2008.
The CTMD is currently conducting Community Cultural Initiatives in New York's Peruvian, Chinese, Ukrainian and Jewish communities and initiating a new Initiative in the Colombian community.
Beginning in 2010, Raim, along with ethnographer Itzik Gottesman, and klezmer singer Michael Alpert, has led an advanced summer workshop in Weimar, Germany, on the tradition of unaccompanied Yiddish singing, an older style of singing Yiddish, particularly among women at Yiddish Summer Weimar (YSW).
On April 23, 2012 Raim emceed the Half the Sky Festival: The Sweetest Song: Women's Traditional Song Sampler, presented jointly by the CTMD and the Brooklyn Arts Festival, an a cappella vocal concert with outstanding singers, including Eva Primack (Balkan), and Irka Mateo (Dominican), held at the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn.
See also Ethel Raim's Yiddish Song of the Week selections archived online on the CTMD website.

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 03 Jun 13 - 04:17 AM

Always thought A Cool Day & Crooked Corn was an amazing title for an album, though when I finally tracked a copy down I found it a bit limp in comparison to the other ethnomusicological delights to be had on The Nonsuch Explorer series. A Harvest, a Shepherd, a Bride and In the Shadow of the Mountain are both lifelong favourites - a classic pairing helpfully repackaged on a single CD some time ago & still available at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harvest-Shepherd-Bride-Shadow-Mountain/dp/B001F3T44E

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST,Arkansas Red-Ozark Troubadour
Date: 02 Jun 13 - 11:02 PM

What a shame to take the Pennywhistlers performances on Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest program off YouTube. Stupid idea. Really enjoyed their performances live. Was Ethel Raim the one who played banjo with the group?

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: Max Johnson
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 10:28 AM

I met Ethel Raim, who was a friend of Sheila Miller, sometime around 1980 in London. A lovely person.

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 09:46 AM

Hello, artbrooks. I have an album of theirs called 'A Cool Day and Crooked Corn.'   It's been one of our favorites. Years ago I sent a letter to the producer listed on the album, asking for contact info about a possible gig, but nobody ever responded.

I can't remember when that was, but it was before CD's were invented - so possibly the late-medieval period.

Quito, thanks for your attempt, but that Facebook page is no help.   It seems to be images off old albums, none of which I can read.

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST,Quito
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 05:07 AM

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Pennywhistlers/199721593387765?sk=wall

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: elfcape
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 12:08 AM

well, google Ethel Raim and you'll start getting a lead on just what happened to the leader of the Pennywhistlers.

What a trip down memory lane!

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: GUEST,Bill the sound
Date: 19 Jan 08 - 08:04 PM

Have you looked at the price of these today. I saw one for £4 99.
Not £5 but are they now pennyoff whistles?

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Jan 08 - 06:51 PM

anyone?

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Jan 08 - 01:13 PM

They are definitely lower case, gnu.

Subject: RE: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: gnu
Date: 19 Jan 08 - 01:01 PM

I thought you were looking for Leadfingers, et al.

Subject: Where are the Pennywhistlers?
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Jan 08 - 12:54 PM

Another great group from the 60s, The Pennywhistlers sang mostly acapella and did a lot of Eastern European music. They cut (I think) at least four LPs, including one with Theodore Bikel. The latter has been commercially re-released as a CD, although Smithsonian Folkways has a "custom-manufactured" CD available of their first (self-titled) album and Amazon will sell you an MP3 download of it. Where are they now?