Seth Rogovoy is a contributing editor at the Forward. He is the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet (Scribner, 2009) and the forthcoming Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison (Oxford University Press).
Seth Rogovoy
By Seth Rogovoy
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Music The Secret Jewish History of ‘You’re Sixteen,’ That Song Joel Pollak Was Yammering About
The old rockabilly standard “You’re Sixteen,” first made famous by Johnny Burnette in 1960 and then revived by Ringo Starr in 1973, is back in the news again after right-wing commentator Joel Pollak, of Breitbart News, referred to the pop hit in defense of Alabama Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused of…
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Culture Was Bob Dylan At His Best When He Was Christian?
I recently attended an alumni reunion at the Berkshires summer camp where I worked in the kitchen in the 1970s. More than one person came up to me at the reunion and said, “I’ll never forget how upset you were when Bob Dylan became a born-again Christian.” When early in the summer of 1979 it…
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Culture The Russian Jew Who Made Fats Domino A Star
New Orleans singer-pianist Fats Domino, one of the seminal influences on rock ‘n’ roll, died Tuesday in his hometown of New Orleans at age 89. When Domino signed a recording deal with Lew Chudd, owner of Imperial Records, pop history was in the making. The artist recorded a slew of hit singles in the 1950s,…
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Film & TV The Secret Jewish History of Winnie-The-Pooh
A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories have delighted youngsters for over 90 years, as have their numerous spinoffs as TV shows, cartoons, holiday specials, movies and, of course, branded merchandise, all of which made Milne very wealthy. But the story behind the story of how Milne created the complex children’s tale and characters based on his son,…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History of Blade Runner
The long-awaited sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic “Blade Runner” opens in theaters October 6. “Blade Runner 2049” picks up the original story 30 years after the events recounted in the original, which was set in 2019. For those who don’t remember, and for the very few who never saw it, “Blade Runner” was a…
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Culture Who’s Art Garfunkel’s Favorite Artist? Hint: It Rhymes With Bart Carfunkel
You learn a lot of things about Art Garfunkel in his new memoir, “What Is It All But Luminous: Notes from an Underground Man” (Knopf). For example, you learn what songs are on his iPod (hint: a lot of Art Garfunkel songs). You learn that, as of the book’s writing, he has read 361,980 pages,…
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Culture That Time Tom Petty Toured The Western Wall
Tom Petty, one of the most popular and beloved singers and songwriters in rock music since the late 1970s, died at UCLA Santa Monica Hospital on Monday, October 2, after suffering cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu. Petty, age 66, had just wrapped up a big tour with his band, the Heartbreakers, which ended…
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Music Why The Village Voice Was Crazy To Put Bob Dylan On Its Last Cover
Had I been eating soup when I saw the cover of this week’s farewell issue of the Village Voice, I would have spit up. There, on the cover, is a full-page photograph of Bob Dylan, circa 1965, taken in Greenwich Village, saluting the camera in a manner which, one supposes, could be viewed as a…
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