54 years ago, give or take a day or two, I and my year group went to see a
performance of the Nahal army entertainment group when we were in Israel for the first time. As I
wrote1 19 years ago,
On the Sunday, we all collected in the cafeteria. This was my 16th
birthday, and I felt like I was holding court. After lunch, we travelled
to Kibbutz Mevo Chama, which is on the Golan Heights, overlooking the Sea
of Galilee: a magical view. In the evening, we had a short "get to meet
the kibbutz and its people" as well as a birthday party for me. A
wonderful evening.... On the penultimate day of our stay, I arranged for
us to go and see the Army entertainment troupe who were appearing not far
away. In those far off days, these troupes were the best entertainment in
Israel, and we saw the best of those troupes, in one of its best line ups.
Not that we understood a word of what they said! But the songs were
great.
Over the past month or so, I've been listening to several of the songs from
that performance and thinking about them. The
opening song
was one that was played frequently on the radio and we were all familiar
with it at the time. As the record had applause between songs, and as the
sparse sleeve notes said that the show was recorded at Kibbutz Givat
HaShlosha in recognition of 30 years of the Palmach, I presumed that the
record was a live recording. It's only been in the past month that I noticed
that several of the vocals were double tracked and that there were no
visible microphones. Slowly it dawned on me that this was a studio recording
with applause added at a later date - a fake live recording.
There is another song from a bit later in the show, a song from the heady
days of 1948, called '
comradeship'; this begins with a duet between a male soldier playing the mandolin and
a female soldier playing the flute. The mandolinist is a recognised top
guitarist in Israel, although his active playing days seem to be over. I
wondered who was playing the flute; CoPilot told me that it was probably a
professional flautist and not one of the performers as one might imagine.
Again no microphones are visible.
I remember years ago trying to match the names of the songs as listed on
the sleeve with the songs listed on the record's central label and with
those that were playing. It seemed to me that there was one extra song that
played but was not listed; this was a real shame as the song was beautifully
arranged, played and sung. It was only in the last month that again I became
interested in what this song could be. Someone uploaded to YouTube all the
songs and skits of the double record, and this mysterious song can be found:
'Emek', aka the
Jezreel Valley. Here is a
link
to the song, but this is not the only one on YouTube. Here is
another, and the uploader's comments are very interesting.
From a hidden bonus track on "Palnach"nik", 1972: A typical Sanderson
arrangement (+ Hendrix and Clapton hints) of a sweeping hymn full of love
for the land, the human soul and life in full drive; Amazing solo: Gideon
Gov; background musicians: Yardena Arazi, Ephraim Shamir and more of the
best of the Palmach production of the time. The audience - in ecstasy! (and
rightly so). Recorded at a public performance at Kibbutz Givat Hashlosha to
mark the 30th anniversary of the Palmach.
There are two very interesting factoids in that paragraph: the first is
that the song was indeed a hidden bonus track, partially explaining why the
title didn't appear on the sleeve. The other is that Gidi Gov played the
guitar solo (especially at around the 3:58 mark); I hadn't considered Gov to
have been more than a capable guitarist (what The Band would have called 'a
strummer') but CoPilot assures me that Gov really did know how to play the
guitar but he stopped playing in public when he concentrated more on his
vocals.
There is even a third, albeit truncated, video
available on YouTube that is most interesting; this mixes shots of the original
settlers working the land spliced together with shots of the Nahal group
performing the song. The direction of the filming could have been improved. This
recording is definitely different from that on the record - and singers can
be seen singing into microphones.
According to CoPilot, the reason why this song was a hidden bonus track is
that it was part of the 30th anniversary show
but not part of the regular show. Most if not all of the performances
on the records were studio recordings, documenting the show. The third video
makes me wonder whether this was the actual live recording from the 30th
anniversary and that what appears on the record is a studio recording. Gidi
Gov is clearly not playing a guitar in that third video. The notes for this version state that the arrangement was by Danny Sanderson, who was in the previous Nahal troupe and would go on to found Kaveret.
Going back to our stay in Israel: I was part of the 'cultural committee'
that arranged activities from the group. I don't know who else was with me -
if anyone - as I remember three events that I proposed. The army show was
one; when in Jerusalem, we went to a nearby cinema to see the original
version of 'Far from the madding crowd', and at some stage we went to hear some chamber music at the old railway
station which wasn't far from where we stayed. The only piece that I
remember from that show was ' 'Introduction and Allegro' by Ravel; I found this in one of the classical records in my school's
collection and recorded it to cassetter whilst reading a newspaper in the
background (I can be heard turning a page). In the pre-YouTube days of the
1990s , I looked for this and eventually found it on a cd. This is
considered one of Ravel's minor works, but I like it all the same.
Internal links
[1] 98
This day in blog history:
