Jewish pop star, Matisyahu, reaches out to the world with spiritual intensity
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Matisyahu melds Orthodox Judaism with rock instrumentation, reggae inflections and rap lyrics.
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As an impressionable youth, I descended the staircase of a Squirrel Hill synagogue, entranced by the melodies of Jewish folk-rocker Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. For me, the attraction was his keyboard player's stacks of Sequential Circuits synthesizers, which piqued my growing interest in electronic sounds.
For another Jewish kid, born Matthew Paul Miller, the effects were different. Entering the Carlebach Shul (the synagogue run by the now-deceased rabbi's great-nephew) in New York's Upper West Side was a major step on the road to becoming Matisyahu, the unique pop star who melds Orthodox Judaism with rock instrumentation, reggae inflections and rap lyrics on stages across the globe -- even in Alaska and Guam.
"Sure, I was very inspired by [Carlebach], but I'm also different,"
Where: Stage AE, North Shore.
When: 8 p.m. Saturday.
Tickets: $28-$30; 412-229-5483.
Matisyahu explains. "He was from a long line of rabbis in Europe with a strong background in the Torah, and got into music later in life, becoming more open to the world. My process was the opposite -- I grew up in the secular world listening to music, and became religious later on. I picked up on his books and CDs, but he was a really spiritual heavy hitter, and I'm just a normal person."
Given the level of renown Matisyahu received over the course of several hot-shifting studio and live albums, he's not too modest to mention the significance of his latest effort -- the CD/DVD package "Live at Stubb's Volume II". To a religious Jew formerly identified with the ultra-Orthodox Lubavitch Hasidic movement, what's the appeal of Stubb's, a treyf (unkosher) barbecue joint in Austin, Texas?
"I was starting my career as a fresh-out-of-yeshiva Baal Teshuva [returnee to the faith]. I bought a van, convinced my bandmates to go on tour, and we stopped at Stubb's. I'd signed a record deal with Or Records, an indie label that had a deal with Sony. They had released Los Lonely Boys and had a connection with Austin, a music town. We recorded at Stubb's because they wanted to put me in a place as far from Judaism as possible, to make the point that it wasn't just 'Matisyahu, Live at Shmuley's Bar Mitzvah.' We did the second volume there because we pretty much had a brand."
First Published July 14, 2011 12:00 am
