Singer Baruch Levine spoke to Arutz Sheva-Israel National News during his visit to Israel, “I'm here to visit my daughters and families, whenever I have a chance to come, I’m here.”
As Levine launches his new album “Off the Record Three, ” he says that ‘Off the Record’ one and two were all English songs. So I had this idea that music evokes nostalgia, remembering the songs that used to be really hits people very strongly, they remember not just the songs, they remember where they were and good things hopefully come out. With ‘Off the Record’ three we decided to take songs that could be International. Everybody knows the Pirchei records, everybody grew up with kids choirs, like London and Toronto and Slobo Shesh. People think these songs have been around forever, so because number one and two were so well accepted, I wanted to try something and I see that even here in Israel and all over the world, people are enjoying it.”
Levine, who was in Israel on October 7th, says that “everyone has been tremendously affected by the massacre. We are constantly praying for everyone, and for me personally, I've written songs. People feel joy and pain; everyone expresses their emotions differently; people cry, people laugh, and I write music. That's what I do. That's the language of my soul. So right now it's with me, maybe one day I'll put it out, we'll see. I don't like to be an opportunist, but I know that sometimes there's the right time. Hopefully everybody will come home and then the sad song will turn into a happy one.”
Levine believes that, “music touches people in different ways. There's very contemporary music, and live music and pop music, and people are enjoying it dancing to it and it's wonderful. But there is something very special about nostalgia. When I put out ‘Off the Record’ one in 2020, it was during Covid. Nobody was looking forward anymore, everybody was scared what's the future going to bring. What are we going to do, how we going to work, are we ever going to make a living again, and people started thinking about their upbringing and it was the era of nostalgia and people were opening old picture albums and listening to old cassettes and records.”
Levine continues, “I went to Donnie Gross, who produces my music, and I said, ‘I have an idea. Let's put out something called ‘Off the Record,’ in English. ‘Off the Record’ has two connotations in English. One, when I have an interview, I tell you something on the record, or off the record. Two, the vinyls, the records, these are all songs that were on record at one point and I realized that these songs are unbelievable, they're just as good today as they were in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. So why aren't people listening to them? Because of the packaging today. The way we package a song is very different, the sound, the way kids hear music is so defined and so crystal clear, that when the father wants to listen to the old music, the kids say, ‘I can't hear this music.’ It doesn't appeal to them, not that it's modern versus old, it's just the way you learn.”
Levine explains, “I’ve been a Rabbi and teacher for about 20 years and we're still teaching the same Gemara (Talmud), but the way that materials are delivered are different. We used to write on the chalkboard, then it was colors, and now it's on a Smartboard, that's the way the generation listens to music. So to take the old songs with the new packaging was, thank God, a recipe that I think people enjoyed.”
On plans for the future, Levine says that, “We have a few series, I have my own albums, my new music, I realize now we have to put them out as single, it is very hard for people to hear ten new songs on one album, hard for people to absorb and you don't want a good song to go to waste. I have my Kumzitz Alive series, which I'm doing in America and then in the UK, and hopefully I’ll do one over here. I mean there are still groups like Regesh from Shmuel Brazil and Dveykus from Abie Rotenberg, so we'll see. The idea with Pirchei was nice, because we were able to take five Pirchei groups and put them on one record, so we'll see, but I'm so glad everybody's enjoying it.”