Top ten reasons to volunteer at the RSA

By , January 21, 2015 5:20 pm

Volunteer photo Looking for local volunteers

RSA’s sound technician, Ben Roth, set up a table and tried to entice passersby to sign up at Boca Pointe’s Volunteer Fair on Tuesday, January 20, 2015. Not much luck.

People are often amazed at the number of recordings that the RSA has been able to digitize and put online. “How do you do it?” That’s a question we often hear.

The answer? VOLUNTEERS!!!!

But why should you volunteer when you have so many other things to do? What’s in it for you? So here is my top ten reasons to volunteer at the Recorded Sound Archives in FAU Libraries, Boca Raton.

10. You can reminisce about some of the world’s greatest Jazz musicians as you enter information from LPs into the database.

9. You can learn more about Jazz history, songs and musicians by reading the backs of album covers.

8. You can improve your mind and improve your memory by exercising your brain muscles.

7. You can improve your manual dexterity and keyboard skills.

6. You can feel good about spending your time doing something useful and worthwhile.

5. You can volunteer whenever you have time to kill as long as it is on Mon through Thurs between 9am and 4pm.

4. You can enjoy the ambiance of FAU’s beautiful Boca Raton campus and the Wimberly Library.

3. You might make new friends.

2. You can see and hear demonstrations of the RSA’s antique equipment, including an original Edison cylinder player and two console Victrolas from the 1920s.

And the number 1 reason to volunteer at the RSA…..

We need you!

Contact Alethea Perez at 561-297-0080 for more information.

Gone but not forgotten – the Barry Sisters

By , January 5, 2015 8:50 pm
Bagelman Sisters/Barry Sisters

Bagelman Sisters/Barry Sisters early photo with Claire Barry on the right.

Yiddish music icons, Merna and Claire Barry, entertained generations of Jewish Americans with their jazzy versions of Yiddish songs.

For over 40 years the Bagelman Sisters, later known as the Barry Sisters, were the darlings of Jewish entertainment. Their recordings could be found in almost every Jewish household in the 1950s and 60s. The younger of the two sisters, Merna, passed away in 1976. The older sister, Claire Barry, died on November 22, 2014 in Hollywood, FL at 94. Click here for full NY Times obituary.

Who were the Barry Sisters?

Two beautiful girls, dressed in the latest fashion, hair  perfectly coiffed, singing with sultry voices that could make your heart leap.

Born in New York, the two sisters were originally known as the Bagelman Sisters. Many saw them as the Yiddish answer to the popular Andrews Sisters in the 1940s. They combined old Jewish folk songs and Yiddish Theater ditties with swing arrangements and perfect harmony. When Clara and Minnie changed their names to Claire and Merna The Bagelman Sisters became The Barry Sisters. They have often been credited with creating Yiddish Swing, a music genre which did not exist previously.

The glamorous Barry Sisters were regular guests at Yiddish radio programs like Yiddish Melodies in Swing. They toured with the Ed Sullivan Show to the Soviet Union and performed in Israel in October 1962.

The popularity of their catchy and jazzy tunes may have paved the way for the Broadway hit, Fiddler on the Roof, and the klezmer revival of the late 70s.

Listed below are some of their most popular tunes. The Judaica Sound Archives has 41 recordings by this dynamic duo of Yiddish music.

Abi Gezunt (Stay healthy)

In Meine Oigen Bistie Shain (To me you are beautiful)

Channah from Havannah (A Gala Concert with Moishe Oysher album, no. 3).

Bublitchki (About the last bagel)

Dem Neyem Sher (At Home With album, no. 2).

Roumania

Click here for more Barry Sisters recordings. Due to copyright concerns only snippets can be heard on our public website.  Full versions are available to users of the RSA Research Station.

 

RSA guest blogger, Niels Falch, is a PhD candidate at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and is currently writing a dissertation on the influence of Jewish music in American popular songs.

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