Jews in Pop and Rock Music
Tuition: $360 | YIVO members: $270**
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This is a live, online course held on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 25 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, recordings of class sessions, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in English, and any readings will be in English.
Instructor: Jonathan Karp
In this six-part course, we will examine the extraordinary role played by Jews in the development of American popular music, giving particular emphasis to the Rock ‘n’ Roll and classic Rock eras of the ‘50s and ‘60s. We’ll begin by looking at the origins of Jewish participation in the popular music industry, including the development of Tin Pan Alley sheet music publishing, Vaudeville, and Broadway song composing. Jews were involved in all aspects of the music industry, not just as songwriters but as agents and impresarios too. Next, we examine the emergence of mostly Jewish-owned independent record labels during the post-World War II period that initially specialized in Rhythm and Blues records for Black consumers but eventually served the newly emerging market of young white listeners thirsting for Rock ‘n’ Roll. Finally, we survey the great Jewish singer-songwriters like Carole King, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and Carly Simon who dominated the singer-songwriter era of the late ‘60s and ‘70s. A postscript will bring the story into the Age of Hip Hop, with Jewish entrepreneurs still playing a familiar role as brokers and innovative promoters of popular sounds.
Course Materials:
The instructor will make all course readings and audio samples available online.
Jonathan Karp is a professor of Judaic Studies and History at Binghamton University of the State University of New York (SUNY). From 2010-2013 he served as executive director of the American Jewish Historical Society. He is also the 2019 recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service. He is the author of The Politics of Jewish Commerce: Economic Thought and Emancipation in Europe (Cambridge, 2008) and has co-edited seven volumes on a wide array of topics, most recently The Cambridge History of Judaism in the Early Modern Period (2017) with Adam Sutcliffe, and World War I and the Jews (2018) with Marsha Rozenblit. His forthcoming book is Chosen Surrogates: How Blacks and Jews Transformed American Popular Music.
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