The Jewgrass Situation
An Examination of Nefesh Mountain’s Political Message
IBMA’s 2022 Neil Rosenberg Bluegrass Scholar Paper
by Gabby Cameron
Abstract
In the bluegrass scene, there is an emerging sub-genre that emphasizes Jewish expression, dubbed “Jewgrass.” The most prominent Jewgrass group is Nefesh Mountain. Jewgrass and Nefesh Mountain have yet to receive scholarly attention, with the exception of Brautbar et, al. 2020, and Klaus 2019. Such scholarship discusses Nefesh Mountain’s Jewishness; however, it has yet to explore the band’s recent political commentary. In 2021, Nefesh Mountain released the album Songs for the Sparrows, a response to the turbulent political climate of the late 2010s, and specifically, violent acts of antisemitism. Inspired by the works of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, Nefesh Mountain incorporates leftist themes of advocacy, solidarity, and justice in Songs for the Sparrows.
The first portion of this paper explores the generational diasporic position of Nefesh Mountain, connecting their music with the Jewish-American immigrant experience. I argue that Nefesh Mountain’s political nature stems from multi-generational Jewish immigrant involvement in the early-to-mid-20th century U.S. labor movement and associated musical practices. Through a close reading of Songs for the Sparrows, I explore Nefesh Mountain’s response to recent political unrest. I show that Nefesh Mountain is well positioned for diasporic advocacy, thanks in part to their collaborative relationships with noteworthy bluegrass musicians (Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, etc.) on the album. I examine how this album reflects Nefesh Mountain’s unique intermediary position, bridging the contemporary Jewish music community and bluegrass community and invoking Jewish values to spread a political message.
Keywords: Bluegrass, Jewish, Jewgrass, Americana, Ashkenazi, Labor
Introduction
The morning of Saturday October 27, 2018, in Pittsburgh, PA, a man opened fire on congregants during a shabbat service at the Tree of Life synagogue, killing eleven people and wounding six. This massacre would be reported as the deadliest attack on Jewish people in the history of the United States.(1) Joining Jewish people across the globe in collective grief, Jewish bluegrass (Jewgrass) band Nefesh Mountain channeled their sadness and confusion into their song, “Tree of Life.” Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg penned the song the morning following the shooting and shared their work on Monday October 29th via Facebook Live, presently garnering 350,000 views. The following year, the band performed “Tree of Life” at the bluegrass venue The Station Inn, sharing the heavy experience of antisemitism with Jewish and non-Jewish fans alike. Before singing the song, Zasloff made the impassioned statement,
“We wanted to share with everybody tonight a song that Eric and I wrote the Sunday after the tragedy in Pittsburgh. A crime of hatred, terrible antisemitic nightmare. We woke up that next morning and as musicians, we don’t know what to do and I don’t get it. I don’t get why this is all happening, and I don’t know. But I knew that I wanted to do something, so Eric and I woke up and wrote a song. I wanted to sing this tonight. It is an offering of love. It goes out to anyone who has ever been subjected to hate… There’s so much hate in this world. The only way that we know how to do anything is to try to put music out and try to heal that with love and music. The song is called Tree of Life.”(2)
She then began to sing, “I’m angry and tired of this great divide, but I sing nonetheless with love on my side.” Some YouTube comments in response to Nefesh Mountain’s performance read, “I come back to visit this song periodically as I need it for my on-going healing from this tragedy here in Pittsburgh, PA. Thank you so much for putting into words what we all feel and share. You have healed so many broken souls and hearts with this song,” and, “The Cantors of Temple Emanuel-El Dallas sang this beautiful song on the 1 yr. Yahrzeit of Tree of Life and following the devastating losses of the tornado that ripped through our community. It was moving and brought healing to us. Thank you for your creativity and voices.”(3)
“Tree of Life” stands out from the rest Nefesh Mountain’s discography. The group is most notably known for interpreting Jewish prayers in bluegrass textures, drawing on the themes of Christian gospel music. Lindberg’s arrangements typically feature an intricate weaving of banjo, fiddle, guitar, and dobro, balancing vocals (sometimes sung in Hebrew) with pulsing instrumental sections. Instead, “Tree of Life” features a solo banjo and vocal duet, set at a much slower tempo. This juxtaposition conveys a new level of introspection, creating space for grief-processing and collective healing. Nefesh Mountain has always strived to build community through their joyous and upbeat music. I argue that “Tree of Life” marks a new political chapter in the bluegrass band’s creative conscience, ultimately setting the stage for their 2021 record, Songs for the Sparrows. This record, which is the third Nefesh Mountain album, can be seen as the group’s response to the tumultuous political era of the mid 2010s. In Songs for the Sparrows, Nefesh Mountain takes their community-building to another level, prompting listeners to think critically about the political atmosphere at present, inviting empathy and collective healing for all people, not only victims of antisemitism.
Nefesh Mountain’s political allegory in their lyricism highlights an ever-growing phenomenon of modern progressive bluegrass musicians’ response to news media cycles. Historically, bluegrass has intentionally avoided socio-political commentary, compared to more directly political genres such as punk, hip hop, or folk. Bluegrass as a genre distanced itself from the folk revival of the 1960s for political reasons. Prior to the 2010s, bluegrass musicians were punished for speaking of politics.(4) Today, many contemporary bluegrass and bluegrass-adjacent artists explore political activism, drawing on the very folk-revival ideologies it had once avoided. Artists such as Rhiannon Giddens, Billy Strings, Tyler Childers, Punch Brothers, Jake Blount, and many others, have intentionally expressed their political disquietude through lyricism and public activism. With that in mind, where does bluegrass fall on the political spectrum? Is bluegrass predominately conservative, given its large following in the southeastern United States, a region mediatized as “red?” Is bluegrass more liberal, given its origination and scope in metropolitan areas? Is there even value to dividing a genre into binary political categories?
What is clear is that the progressive bluegrass community at large is shifting to offer more political commentary in its music, aligning itself with folk-revivalist values. And in this paper, I will explore how Nefesh Mountain toes the line of political commentary and identity politics in Songs for the Sparrows, using an activist message to share their music.
Defining Jewgrass
Though not the first group to blend themes of Jewish imagery and bluegrass music, Nefesh Mountain are certainly the most well-known Jewgrass band in the bluegrass scene today. Some other Jewgrass groups include Kol Kahol, Zion Mountain Boys, and Rocky Mountain Jewgrass, among many other semi-professional and amateur artists.(5) Jewgrass music is mostly played in religious spaces (synagogues, religious services) but is also found in secular spaces (bluegrass festivals, ticketed venues). Jewgrass builds on the bluegrass tradition of singing Christian gospel tunes by trading the New Testament for the Old while maintaining the Appalachian folkloric presentation. Jewgrass often incorporates Hebrew into its lyricism. Drawing on themes of bluegrass, Jewgrass references aspects of the Jewish American experience, creating aesthetics that surround a longing for return to one’s “homeland” (be it the Jerusalem Ridge of Kentucky, or the Jerusalem Ridge of, well, Jerusalem).(6) It exists as original compositions, or as covers of popular bluegrass songs with lyrics changed to match the thematic material.
Nefesh Mountain’s recent album Songs for the Sparrows strays from their liturgical and cultural themes, and explores the political implications of being Jewish in the United States. Not only is the content of Songs for the Sparrows sharing a political message of performative identity, but Nefesh Mountain’s inevitable branding as a Jewish bluegrass band can also be seen as political. Nefesh Mountain’s performed Jewishness in the bluegrass space indexes the historical lack of religious variety in bluegrass canon.(7)
I argue that Nefesh Mountain bridges Jewish communities and bluegrass communities through their music, thus using advocacy and solidarity to spread political message. Because Nefesh Mountain’s identity is performed differently in different settings (i.e., synagogues vs. venues), I believe this fluctuation brings up some inevitable constraints within their activism. This requires the group to be thoughtful in how they present their activism, and to whom. In a neoliberal capitalist music industry, it is not enough to make a political statement on its own. It is now seen as branding.(8) With Nefesh Mountain being branded as Jewgrass, the group practices their activism carefully, taking a broad approach when countering hegemonic supremacy, in efforts to have as wide of a reach as possible while maintaining their personal political integrity. (9) The group feels comfortable doing so by marketing their music not only as “fighting antisemitism,” but also as “stopping all hate.”(10)
To gain a deeper understanding of Nefesh Mountain’s cultural and political impact in the progressive bluegrass scene, it is important to understand the historical progression of Jewgrass music, and how political engagement remains at the heart of American Jewish music-making. This history is also useful in pointing to the development of folk-revival values of the progressive bluegrass genre at large.
New Americana as Jew Americana
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jewish people immigrated to the United States from Central and Eastern Europe fleeing violent persecution. An estimated 2.5 million Jews left their homes to pursue economic prosperity in the United States and avoid prejudicial subjugation. Many Jewish immigrants spoke Yiddish and were of Ashkenazi descent. Ashkenazi Jews are the majority subsect of the Jewish diasporic population. While many American Ashkenazi Jews were deeply affected by the Holocaust, Jewish immigrants living in the United States at the time did not face the systemic ethnic cleansing like their European counterparts.
Prior to their migration to the United States, many Ashkenazi Jews (from Russia, Poland, and Lithuania) were active in labor politics. Movements in response to Imperialist Russia arose, resulting in the Marxist coalition of the General Jewish Labor Bund in 1897. The Bund (also called the Labor Bund, or Bundists) was an anti-Zionist organization that took value in countering the systemic oppression of Jewish people in Russia, rather than leaving their country to flee to Palestine. The Bundists were founded on doikayt, a Yiddish word meaning “hereness,” and attempted to make their home more hospitable rather than conforming to the establishment of a Jewish nation-state.(11) While Bundism is considered an iconographic form of Jewish political activism, many Zionist Jewish immigrants also participated in socialism and labor organizing (in Russia and the US), indicating that such activism was linked to Jewish ideology. Bundism was well underway during the mass Ashkenazic migration to the US; many Bundist and non-Bundist socialists found themselves in New York City, influencing US labor movement politics.
Since the 1890s, Jewish immigrant socialists were actively organizing in the United States. They established socialist organizations such as The Workmen’s Circle (still around today as The Worker’s Circle), the Yiddish speaking Jewish Socialists Federation, The Forverts (Yiddish communist publication, meaning Forward), and communist summer camps such as Camp Kinderland, Woodland, Wo-Chi-Ca.(12) Jewish socialists were also involved with the International Workers Order and partnered with labor organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Many of these organizations used music to build community, hosting chorales and song sessions. Yiddish newspaper Freiheit established a New York Mandolin Orchestra in 1924, playing repertoire that included the Star-Spangled Banner alongside the communist anthem, the Internationale. Given the industrial ability to mass produce the instruments, mandolins were quite popular at this time.
This organizational socialist Jewish involvement introduced the children of Jewish immigrants to American labor movement artists, such as Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. These artists interacted with Jewish culture to an extent that would greatly influence their respective lives; Woody Guthrie married a Jewish woman (penning six Hanukkah songs), and Pete Seeger played his banjo on the Jewish camp-circuit, also charting the Yiddish folk song, “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena” with The Weavers.
The Jewish relationship to Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie is striking. These artists had a profound influence on many Jewish Americana practitioners such as Bob Dylan, and even present-day bluegrass artists such as Béla Fleck and Nefesh Mountain. Joe Glazer, IWW songster born to Ashkenazi immigrants, was also heavily inspired by the music of Seeger, and worked alongside him in the labor movement sphere, incorporating Appalachian string textures into IWW song recordings in the 1950s. I believe that Pete Seeger’s intentional folkloric incorporation of the five-string banjo into his song-leading emboldened the children of Jewish immigrants with a sense of American identity. Pete Seeger’s ability to command a group in song also inspired many Jewish religious musical leaders such as Debbie Friedman.(13) Seeger’s style of song leading, and his repertoire, are still practiced at Jewish camps in modern day.
Seeger’s fascination with Appalachia was part of a larger structural fixation on Appalachian folkloric culture, but I believe Seeger to be the icon who introduced Appalachian folkloric textures directly to Jewish culture. Perhaps it was Seeger’s sonic aesthetics of “simple” Appalachian life paired with the socialist ideologies that charmed urban Jewish Americans. But something was cooking. From the mid 1940s to the mid 1960s, Jewish American teenage boys (children of Jewish immigrants) would gather in Washington Square Park to play bluegrass music. A young Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) was known to attend such jams. These sessions began as Seeger’s iconic “Washington Square Hootenannies,” but later evolved into something with a life of its own. T.J. Pertz highlights, “The participants remain perplexed about why bluegrass gripped them so strongly when they first heard it and about why so many of them share a basic demographic profile. There is a broad perception among them, however, that it probably all started with politics.”(14)
Bluegrass, in its inception, was a musical response to outward Appalachian migration for industrial-age economic prosperity. While the imagery of early bluegrass reminisces the hills and hollers of the mountains, it was not overtly political in nature. Pertz proposes that it was the Jewish entrenchment in leftist political activism that allowed bluegrass’ bucolic imagery to serve as escapism. The folkloric imagery of bluegrass portrayed itself to be anti-industrial and anti-capitalist; I speculate that this is what attracted the first-generation Jewish Americans in the first place. Pertz points out some significant Jewish-meets-bluegrass milestones:
“In every bluegrass band the participants mentioned, almost every member was Jewish. The first band to play bluegrass in the park (and probably in the entire northeast, as they recorded their first album in 1953) was the Shanty Boys, featuring Roger Sprung, Lionel Kilberg and Mike Cohen, who all were Jewish. As noted earlier, while the New Lost City Ramblers’ mandolinist Mike Seeger was not Jewish, banjo player Tom Paley and guitarist John Cohen were. Perhaps the most famous bluegrass track in existence, ‘Dueling Banjos’ from the film Deliverance, was recorded by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell. Both got their start playing in the Washington Square Park in the mid-1950s, and both were Jewish. In the Greenbriar Boys, a group that formed in the park in the late 50s but made its first recording in 1962, Ralph Rinzler, Bob Yellin, Paul Prestopino and Eric Weissberg were of Jewish ancestry, but John Herald was not. So many Jews were involved in the scene that many people simply assumed Herald was Jewish, even some of his closest friends.”
While we see the history of the relationship between American Jews and Appalachian music unfolding, it is still unclear where the term Jewgrass specifically comes from. Country music historian Bill Malone pinpoints that the term was used in southern circles to describe the political folk music being played in New York City.(15) IBMA Foundation President Fred Bartenstein reports that the word Jewgrass emerged as a “disparaging moniker for the phenomenon by Southern bluegrass players and a wry insider joke among the New Yorkers. Kinky Friedman, of Texas, picked it up for his alt-country ensemble in the early 1970s.”
Nevertheless, Jewish Americans were developing a relationship with bluegrass music. Examining contemporary bluegrass in 2022, many landmark musicians also still happen to be Jewish: Béla Fleck, Noam Pikelny, Andy Statman, and David Grisman, for example. Each of these artists grew up in large metropolises, such as New York City and Chicago, where the Ashkenazic Jewish immigrant population remains strong. For much of the 20th century, Jews who played bluegrass music did not incorporate Jewish imagery or liturgical references in their music. They stuck to the classic bluegrass canon of fiddle tunes and songs of the high lonesome.
In the late 20th century, artists who were primarily bluegrass musicians, such as Andy Statman, decided to explore their Jewish identity through their Appalachian instruments, bringing the mandolin to Klezmer music. We started to see fusions of Appalachian textures with textures of Jazz Manouche and Klezmer. While this fusion is not strictly Jewgrass yet, it serves as a marker for Jewish musicians and their folkloric Appalachian instrumental musicianship reflecting Jewish identity. This folk-revival history at the crossroads of folk and country music not only set the stage for Jewgrass, but also the political activism that soon would be seen in the subgenre.
A Closer Look at Songs for the Sparrows
Nefesh Mountain is the most well-known Jewgrass group in the bluegrass scene today, with their music being well received in both Jewish and non-Jewish spaces alike. The husband-and-wife duo have been documented in music publications including The Rolling Stone, The Bluegrass Situation, Bluegrass Today, and received significant Jewish press as well in Hey Alma and Jewish Rock Radio.(16) The group tours excessively, playing 150 to 200 dates a year, bringing the Jewgrass message to both bluegrass communities and Jewish congregations.
Nefesh Mountain has high visibility in bluegrass spaces thanks in part to the endorsement of seasoned GRAMMY-award winning (non-Jewish) bluegrass musicians, including Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Tony Trishka, and Bryan Sutton. These artists, some of the most notable since the bluegrass revival in the 1970s, are well-respected in the genre, and their presence in the Nefesh Mountain discography grants the band cultural capital. The endorsement of these bluegrass legends brings Jewgrass into the bluegrass community, extinguishing accusations of kitsch or satire. Because of this endorsement, Nefesh Mountain has a platform to challenge antisemitism and hegemonic supremacy with their music.
Nefesh Mountain’s discography encompasses three LP’s: Nefesh Mountain (2016), Beneath the Open Sky (2018), and their most recent album, Songs for the Sparrows (2021). Their first two albums explore Jewish identity through bluegrass, arranging well-known Jewish prayers to bluegrass textures. Nefesh Mountain also includes original compositions that bring themes of Jewish identity and liturgy, incorporating Hebrew into many of their songs. The group’s recordings and musicianship are of high quality, reflecting the values of bluegrass virtuosity. Such attention to detail allows them to gain traction in the roots mediascape. (17)
The third record, however, is where I would like to focus my scholarly attention. Songs for the Sparrows was released in June 2021 and features lyricism and musical imagery that tackles the political climate of the mid 2010s. In interviews, the band highlights that their own diasporic history in their family lineage paired with the recent rise in antisemitism is what inspired Songs for the Sparrows. Lindberg says,
“We are trying to think culturally, about how we connect these two parts of ourselves, the American — the music and history of our culture — and at the same time be Jewish and make music about our Jewish identity. That is who we are. Our music is a mashup of those identities. It sounds like a joke, but it is who we are.”
Zasloff adds to this sentiment, stating,
“And we’re like hippies, full of peace and love. It feels like an incredible mission, for us to put our truth out, to stay authentic, to put love out. We are not preaching anything. We are not trying to convert anyone. We are not politicians. We are not making any kind of statement. We are about love and hope. We believe that music can be a bridge to connect humanity.”(18)
Zasloff highlights a theme in Songs for the Sparrows of building bridges, forgoing binary political sides to build a community that could affect change. These interview statements correspond directly with their lyrics in the album’s titular track, “A Sparrow’s Song”:
“They say you’re small
Not worth a thing
But I know the truth
I’ve heard you sing
And face to face
I’ve felt it too
When they see themselves
And their hate
And they don’t see you
And so we sing
A sparrow’s song
For those who were told
They don’t belong
A call of long for the
Days gone wrong
Don’t fear little bird
Just fly, fly on” (19)
In an interview with Keith Billik, Lindberg elaborates on how sparrows live in many parts of the world, drawing the parallel of sociopolitical struggles in the United States to similar conflicts happening elsewhere. Anecdotally, Lindberg shared traveling to Poland and Ukraine with family to trace their ancestral Ashkenazic lineage. He was struck by the familiarity of experiencing a foreign nation. Lindberg draws another parallel by comparing Eastern Europe to Appalachia, saying, “We were actually in the woods where our ancestors were shot, and that’s where we first noticed sparrows. It was a beautiful day in what is now present-day Ukraine, gorgeous mountains, and forests. It looked not unlike parts of North Carolina. And there’s sparrows flying around. Something about the birds, we were like, maybe that’s kind of like the souls of our ancestors that are still flying, like a little voice. The ‘small but mighty voice.’” (20)
While the album features allegoric imagery that draws parallels to the American political sphere, most of the band’s direct sociopolitical commentary can be found in press-media for the album itself. In this sense, Nefesh Mountain is acting on a pattern that parallels the folk revival of the 1960s, where singer-songwriters behaved as activists in their public appearance, yet penned songs featuring lyrical imagery that present as vague or ambiguous. By tying this phenomenon with the group’s Jewish identity in a musical space that had not previously explored Jewish faith, we can trace the historical narrative of the relationship between American Jewish music-making and political activism. Thus, Nefesh Mountain can be seen as a modern inception of the Jewish musical activist diasporic legacy in the United States.(21)
Conclusion
While both maintaining the traditions of their immigrant ancestors and breaking status quo in the bluegrass world, Nefesh Mountain can be seen bridging communities together, demonstrating Lee Bidgood’s lens of “betweenness.” In his book Czech Bluegrass, Bidgood recalls his experiences of bluegrass in Eastern Europe, “while performances and receptions of bluegrass music happen between people, they are also informed by media and other forms of interaction and are shaped by negotiations of space and place where that ‘betweenness’ gains heightened importance.” Nefesh Mountain plays a specific role in a number of settings, thus exploring a “negotiation of self and other, now and then, here and there.” This lens of betweenness shares some similarities with the Bundist ideology of doikayt, or “hereness.” (22)
I believe these sentiments adequately encapsulate Nefesh Mountain’s role in the bluegrass world. Nefesh Mountain is tasked with navigating the neoliberal mediasphere. They use their music, an exploration of “negotiation with self and other,” to connect with Jewish communities and non-Jewish patrons of bluegrass spaces. By drawing on their diasporic roots in source material and musical practice, the band highlights negotiations of “now and then.” Their music, and potentially Jewgrass music as a whole, expands on negotiations of “here and there;” furthermore, this bridging of surface-level juxtaposing cultures helps to raise cultural awareness for all parties involved. By practicing such betweenness and anchoring themselves in the doikayt of Appalachian folkloric culture, Nefesh Mountain acts on their “call of love in days gone wrong,” absolving themselves of the binary politic and modeling communal healing for a nation racked with grief.(23)
Notes
1. At this time, I was working as a preschool teacher at the Asheville Jewish Community Center. We were called into a mandatory three-hour security meeting the following Monday after the shooting, where I had to learn how to teach my 3-year-old students what to do if a “bad guy” comes into the classroom with an assault weapon. It was horrifying.
2. Nefesh Mountain, “Nefesh Mountain | ‘Tree Of Life’ - Live at the Station Inn,” YouTube video, September 9, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43HfRV0VZwM
3. Yahrzeit is the Jewish tradition of commemorating the anniversary of tragedy and/or death. A candle is lit for 24 hours along with the reading of the Mourners Kaddish.
4. The landmark example of this was The Chicks’ 2003 statements about George W. Bush while they were touring their progressive bluegrass album, Home.
5. I stumbled into Jewgrass music through the demands of my community. While working at the Asheville JCC and simultaneously playing in a bluegrass band, I started picking up various Jewish related gigs: weddings, b’nei mitzvahs, shabbat services, and children’s programming. The Asheville Jewish community valued hearing prayers in an Appalachian folkloric musical setting. I believe such string textures gave the members of this community a sense of place, blending the Jewish experience with their Appalachian identity.
6. Aaron Klaus, “Nefesh Mountain, "Jewgrass," and the Building of an American Jewish Experience” Studies in American Jewish Literature 38, no. 2 (2019): 102
7. Shirli Brautbaur, “The Valley of the Dry Bones: The Presence and Perseverance of Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness in Country Music and Bluegrass” Journal of Popular Music Studies 32, no. 2 (June 2020): 192
8. Timothy Taylor, Music and Capitalism: A History of the Present (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016), 54
9. Nefesh Mountain’s broad anti-hate approach presents itself with some interesting dilemmas. The group operates in many religious and Jewish communal spaces. Such spaces often times receive funding from Zionist organizations. Given the United States’ relationship with Israel, I see that Nefesh Mountain is navigating a space fraught with emotional and polarizing views. By taking a broad approach, Nefesh Mountain is able to aptly communicate their feelings about oppression without entering the geopolitical conversation of Palestine-Israel. Public figures in the Jewish world who are Zionist often speak publicly about their opinions. Nefesh Mountain stays intentionally silent. Though not directly asked about Israel, the group has been tight-lipped on social media and in interviews regarding the conflict. Perhaps they let the music speak for itself.
10. Hudak, Joseph. “How Nefesh Mountain Are Fighting Anti-Semitism with Traditional Bluegrass” Rolling Stone, June 11, 2021. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/nefesh-mountain- jewish-bluegrass-songs-for-the-sparrows-1182933/
11. Asher Elbein, “The Jewish Labor Bund: A model for modern-day labor movements” April 2021, https://strangersguide.com/articles/the-jewish-labor-bund/
12. Robbie Liberman, My Song is My Weapon: People’s Songs’ American Communism, and the Politics of Culture 1930-1950, (Urbana I.L: University of Illinois Press, 1989).
13. Debbie Friedman is considered the founder of the Jewish Contemporary Music movement, bringing folk-revival values and aesthetics to Jewish liturgical music. Friedman’s music is widely popular in the American Jewish world; her music is sung at Jewish camps, synagogues, and Jewish Community Centers across the US today. She made such an impact in the Jewish music scene that the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion named their cantorial school after her.
14. T.J. Pertz, “The Jewgrass Boys: Bluegrass Music’s Emergence in New York City’s Washington Square Park, 1946-1961” (thesis, Harvard, 2005)
15. Bill Malone Bill Clifton: America’s Bluegrass Ambassador to the World, (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2016)
16. This type of media attention exists within the sphere of the neoliberal capitalized music industry, and while Nefesh Mountain’s activism is valid and true to themselves, it also furthers the band’s “brand” image. I say this because my band shares a similar experience. Prior to the release for Songs for the Sparrows, my band at the time, Mama Danger, also wrote a song in response to the Tree of Life Shooting, called Homesick. I penned a press release that stated that Homesick was our way of “standing up to antisemitism through music.” It received press attention. Jewish publications like to run such stories. I want to point out that as a band, at any level, activism is undoubtedly folded into “branding,” which in turn creates public awareness for one’s music. While Nefesh Mountain’s message is still true and valid, this press-mediatized phenomenon is indicative of the late stage capitalized society we live in where music exists as a commodity.
17. Nefesh Mountain’s precise instrumentation and commitment to high-fidelity recordings help set them apart from the rest of the Jewgrass genre, linking them more with progressive bluegrass rather than Jewgrass in a participatory setting. Much of Jewgrass is only played in Jewish communal spaces, and it is for these reasons that Nefesh Mountain is able to transcend into the touring industry and major festival circuit.
18. Eric Lindberg and Doni Zasloff, “It’s Part of the Jewish Story,” New Jersey Jewish Times, September 8, 2021, https://njjewishnews.timesofisrael.com/its-part-of-the-jewish-story/
19. There is a great deal on this album that I did not have time to cover during this paper. While I mostly address the lyrics, I want to add that Nefesh Mountain demonstrates political activism in the instrumentation. The album features the dobro, an instrument that has ties Eastern Europe. Nefesh Mountain regales the music of the American immigrant experience by seamlessly weaving both Klezmer and Irish influences into their progressive bluegrass sound. For example, the instrumental track “Suite for a Golden Butterfly” explores the music of America coming together, crafting a nonverbal narrative of immigration, home-place, and communal healing.
20. Eric Lindberg, “#90 Eric Lindberg” interview by Keith Billik, The Picky Fingers Banjo Podcast, March 28, 2022, audio, 40:17, https://www.banjopodcast.com/90-eric-lindberg/
21. Additionally, Nefesh Mountain have referenced Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seeger as musical inspirations. The group covered a series of Woodie Guthrie songs in promotion for their album in 2021, which in itself can be seen as a lineage or genealogical progression of songwriting activism.
22. Lee Bigdgood, Czech Bluegrass: Notes from the Heart of Europe, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 3.
23. Some final reflections: Nefesh Mountain is an excellent case study in bluegrass scholarship to highlight various phenomena developing in the bluegrass world. I feel that this project may have brought up more questions than answers. Through this lens, I’d like to explore the research questions: is bluegrass becoming more of a social-justice-oriented popular music genre, drawing on folk-revival values? How does neoliberal capitalism dictate the larger bluegrass music industry and media? What is the relationship between string band music and migration? And ultimately, what steps can we take as educators and practitioners to make string band music more accessible, while furthering communal healing?
Bibliography
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Nefesh Mountain, “Nefesh Mountain | ‘Tree Of Life’ - Live at the Station Inn,“ YouTube video, September 9, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43HfRV0VZwM
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