Solomon Smulewitz, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Solomon Smulewitz

Songwriter, lyricist, bard, actor, badkhn (wedding jester and entertainer), balladeer, and early recording singer

Date of Birth: 01-Jan-0001

Place of Birth: Pinsk, Brest Region, Belarus

Date of Death: 01-Jan-1943

Profession: clown, composer, singer, violinist

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn


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About Solomon Smulewitz

  • Solomon Smulewitz (1868–1943, also Shloyme Smulewitz, Solomon Small) was a Russian-born (later American) Jewish singer, badkhn, recording artist, and primarily composer for the Yiddish theatre.
  • He was born on April 13, 1868 in Pinsk, White Russia (now Belarus) His father was a cantor; Solomon sang in his chorus from the age of 5.
  • When his father died seven years later Solomon went into the tailoring trade while still singing in cantorial choirs in exchange for his meals.
  • He left to join the chorus of a traveling theater troupe and was very successful in girls' roles.
  • After being left behind in an inn as a mashkn (pledge that the others would come back and pay their bill) he went back to the cantor in Pinsk but was thrown out.
  • He became a street singer. He wrote his first song at the age of 12: The desolate orphan, an autobiographical plaint.
  • Having learned Russian he sang and played the fiddle from town to town, finally settling in Minsk, where he became a successful badkhn, also writing songs for other local wedding singers.
  • He wrote for Shomer's play productions in Warsaw.
  • He published his first book in 1891.
  • In America he toured singing his own songs, which eventually totalled around 500 (in a letter to the press he claimed 300 written to his own melodies and 200 set to melodies by others).
  • The most famous were A brivele der mamen, Dos talesl, Al tashlicheinu, Khave, and Dos blumenkrentzele - these and others have through the years often been considered folksongs. From 1905 to 1909 he issued a yearly collection of his lyrics called "Der teater zinger." In 1916 he published "Poeziye un lider." His 500-page autobiography was never published.
  • His song "Khave" was so popular the famous Russian singer Feodor_Chaliapin included it in his repertoire.
  • He was a prolific recording artist. Smulewitz had a strong and piercing tenor voice which suited early recording capabilities well; after 1920 both his manner of singing and style of composition went out of fashion.
  • Smulewitz fell on hard times and to make a living continuously toured the United States and Canada from Halifax to Calgary and Winnipeg, often with his daughter Dorothy, without much success.
  • He died impoverished on January 1, 1943 in New York.

Read more at Wikipedia

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