Information: Ethel Raim

Subject: Information: Ethel Raim
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 08:10 PM

Ethel Raim was mentioned at the Mudcat Singaround today. Can anyone tell me about her? I did find one article about her, but can someone tell me more?

https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2019/05/homegrown-and-botkin-plus-ethel-raim-and-the-an-sky-yiddish-heritage-ensemble/

Another link:

https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/ethel-raim

Subject: RE: Information: Ethel Raim
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 08:29 PM

Perhaps she will join Mudcat and tell us more about herself on her own.

Subject: RE: Information: Ethel Raim
From: GerryM
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 09:23 PM

https://youtu.be/3H-JWqWyJ8Q is a link to a two-hour Yiddish Vocal Workshop that Ethel Raim and my daughter, Sarah Myerson, conducted in June of 2021. They conducted another workshop as part of Yiddish New York in December 2022, I don't know whether anything from it is up on the web.

Subject: RE: Information: Ethel Raim
From: rich-joy
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 09:38 PM

I learnt of her through the singing of the fabulous PENNYWHISTLERS (of which she was a member) and through English singer Frankie Armstrong, who likewise began running workshops, teaching singing/vocalising in that open-throated Eastern European style. Wonderful times.

I still have my LPs and articles about all this, but inaccessibly buried in the morass of my house!! One day .......

Cheers, R-J
(Down Under)

Subject: RE: Information: Ethel Raim
From: rich-joy
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 09:59 PM

Here are The Pennywhistlers (founded by Ethel) singing the iconic "Shto Mi e Milo" (it was then regarded as Macedonian) in 1966, which has since become an anthem of unaccompanied / a cappella singers all over the world. My own groups of the 80s-90s loved singing it too.
Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest" (this clip is taken from one of those Eps) was often 'removed' from YT, so it's good to see it up yet again!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjvSvGAsU7g

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pennywhistlers

Cheers, R-J

Subject: RE: Information: Ethel Raim
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 11:45 PM

I was surprised the above was the only wiki. Couldn't find any mention of The Harvesters. Not much better on Discogs.

Born Ethel “Ettie” Goldstein. Raim is her married name. Walter's birth name was Yudonin. Not sure if it changed before or after they got hitched. IIRC the quartet hooked up at the same summer camp mentioned in the interview. Joyce & Ronnie got married as well. Same Joyce Gluck of The Pennywhistlers.

Thought for sure Stringsinger was on at least one Harvesters (or Homesteaders??) LP but the interwebs remembers different it seems.

Subject: RE: Information: Ethel Raim
From: Jack Campin
Date: 31 Jan 23 - 08:24 AM

She's on Facebook, I have several friends in common with her. Not a frequent poster but I imagine she'll tell you anything you want to know.

Subject: RE: Information: Ethel Raim
From: GUEST,Felipa
Date: 31 Jan 23 - 09:49 AM

I recognized the name Ethel Raim from the 1960s and thought (correctly) that she was in the Pennywhistlers and that she was involved in Sing Out magazine. I didn't know that Ethel Raim was still active and about (Gerry M writes of Ethel teaching a workshop in 2021). But I think she was fairly prominent in the folk/traditional scene in the US back in the 60s.

Subject: RE: Information: Ethel Raim
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 31 Jan 23 - 10:57 AM

Don't we have a thread or two about the Pennywhistlers?
Some of these women have died in recent years,
but as far as I could find out,
Ethel Raim is still alive and well.

Subject: RE: Information: Ethel Raim
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Jan 23 - 11:09 AM

There are biographical details in the article Joe linked from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2918:

Ethel Raim
Traditional Music and Dance Advocate
2018 NEA National Heritage Fellow
New York, New York

Bio
As the 1968 Newport Folk Festival ended, Ethel Raim asked Festival Director Ralph Rinzler why none of the performers had accents like the European immigrants remembered from her childhood in the Bronx. Up until then, the American folk music revival drew from a much narrower spectrum of American cultures, overlooking the immigrant heritages of tens of millions of Americans. Rinzler was persuaded by the impassioned Raim, and the next year immigrant performers documented by Raim appeared at the Newport Folk Festival. Soon after, they also became a major feature of the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife (now the Smithsonian Folklife Festival) which Rinzler founded. In the half century since, she has been a national leader in revitalizing diverse ethnic traditions and awakening Americans to a broader appreciation of our traditional music and dance heritage. With co-director Martin Koenig of the Slavic and Balkan Cultures Program at the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife and New York City's Balkan Arts Center (now known as the Center for Traditional Music and Dance), she pioneered approaches for presenting traditional artists in familiar settings like cafes, beer gardens, and dance halls.

Through Raim’s leadership as executive director, the Center for Traditional Music and Dance (CTMD) carried out field research and programming about a remarkable variety of ethnic traditions, including those of Americans of Caribbean, South American, African, Balkan, Irish, Slavic, Jewish, Latin American, Mediterranean, and Asian heritage. Extending its work beyond research, recordings, films, archiving, and concert programming, Raim created the Community Cultural Initiatives (CCIs). These programs collaborate with a number of ethnic communities to develop infrastructure necessary to sustain the traditions of community partners on their own terms. The outcomes of CCIs include the creation of a number of self-sustaining cultural organizations, including, among others, Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture Without Borders, Mariachi Academy of New York, and establishment of the annual Festival Shqiptar within New York’s Albanian community. Like all of Raim's work, the CCIs foster folk arts as living traditions whose artists are adapting their art forms to new social conditions, innovating while maintaining a traditional core.

A tireless advocate for cultural equity, Raim was a driving force in creating the Folk Arts Program of the New York State Council on the Arts, which now supports more than 70 cultural organizations throughout the state to document, present, and sustain their traditions. Her passion for the folk and traditional arts is also embodied in her own artistic life as a leading singer of Yiddish folk songs. She teaches apprentices and continues to actively perform. Raim is a living treasure whose productions also live beyond planet earth—Bulgarian performers recorded by Koenig and Raim are among 27 musical selections placed on the Voyager Space Craft to represent the music of humankind.

By Robert Baron, Program Director, Folk Arts Program and Music Program, New York State Council on the Arts

Ethel Raim on Facebook (and she rarely posts.) Two mutual friends, no surprise both are Mudcatters.

(Posting the whole article here because sometimes these go away, though hopefully the NEA uses durable links, etc.)

Subject: RE: Information: Ethel Raim
From: Joe Offer
Date: 31 Jan 23 - 10:46 PM

This is so much fun, Gerry. Your daughter did a great job. And so did Ethel, of course.

Subject: RE: Information: Ethel Raim
From: GerryM
Date: 01 Feb 23 - 12:37 AM

Joe, I'm glad you enjoyed it.