FULD VIDEO: Groningen 1995 -

The Legend
Leo Fuld his last recording
Review in The Guardian:
'No more wandering for me'

When Linda Grant tracked down the Yiddish singing star she loved as a child, she didn't expect to find him winning over a whole new audience: young north Africans

When I was a child, on Sunday mornings the family would assemble around the blue-leather-covered gramophone to listen to records. Apart from the Light Programme, there was no music in the house during the rest of the week, and anyway, the star of my parents' collection of 78s was now heard only occasionally on the BBC. His discs, kept carefully in a cupboard in their paper wrappers, were placed on the turntable, the stylus lowered, and within a few notes we were all sobbing.

Where to go, where to go
Every door is closed to me
To the left, to the right
It's the same in every land
There is nowhere to go
And it's me who should know
Won't you please understand

Without actually stating it, Fuld was obviously talking about the hundreds of thousands of Jews in the postwar displaced persons' camps. By the second verse, he has found a home:

Now I know where to go
Where my folks proudly stand
Where to go, where to go
To that precious promised land
I am proud, can't you see
For at last I am free
No more wandering for me

The words of that song and the emotions they aroused, the story of the Jewish diaspora, never left me: I could sing the whole song, on demand, and would do so whenever I tried to explain what Zionism meant to my parents' generation. When my mother died in 1999, I tried to find Leo Fuld's records, but they had been lost in a house move, or thrown away, so one day I looked him up on Google.

The internet can throw up many surprises, but none so bizarre as the fate of Leo Fuld. Just before his death in Amsterdam in 1997, he had been discovered by Mohamed el Fers, a Dutch TV producer of Algerian descent. El Fers had produced Fuld's final album, The Legend, backed by an Algerian rai band, in front of a live audience of young Moroccans. You could download a couple of tracks, and when I clicked on My Yiddishe Momma, I heard the most extraordinary sound: a fusion of Arab north Africa and Jewish eastern Europe. At 84, Fuld's voice was still fresh and the crowd was going crazy, whooping as he announces that he's going to sing My Yiddishe Momma.

I tracked down El Fers, and he told me the Leo Fuld story. He was born Lazarus Fuld in Rotterdam in 1912 and started out in the synagogue choir; at 16, he was leading services, while at night he was singing secular songs in Rotterdam's Cafe de Kool. In 1932, still only 19, he came to Britain to audition for the BBC, where he was noticed by bandleader Jack Hylton and became a radio star. Seven years later, he left for the US where he established a career as a singer of Yiddish songs, performing with Frank Sinatra. When he returned to Rotterdam after the war, his entire family - with the exception of one sister - had died in the Holocaust. In 1948, he wrote Tell Me Where Shall I Go, which became a worldwide hit.

Fuld's career had three phases, El Fers says: the British one, the American one and the French one. In the latter, he performed with Edith Piaf and is said to have discovered Charles Aznavour. In the 1950s, he began to develop an Arab audience and toured the Arab world, still performing Yiddish songs. Then he moved to Las Vegas, but in 1992, at the age of 80, his career more or less over, he returned to the Netherlands.

"I thought he was dead," El Fers told me, "but a friend said, 'He's very poor; everyone has forgotten him and he's living all alone in a tiny apartment.' I remembered the records of my childhood, so I went to interview him and we became friends. He started playing me his old records." To El Fers' ears, the cantorial music of the synagogue had an undercurrent of the Middle East.

"Nobody cared," says El Fers. "He was 82 but still going. He had a kind of nightclub orchestra which was very bad, so I put him in contact with rai music from Algeria." El Fers got Fuld working again: "He went on national television with these very young Algerian musicians and in front of an audience of young Moroccans, and they loved him. I have no idea what was the magic between them. Normally, they're very against Jews and shout about the Palestinians, but the audience wouldn't let him go."

How did they take to Tell Me Where Shall I Go, I asked him? "We were clever," he said, "and we never played that song." Fuld didn't mind: "If he could play, he would play." The song was not performed until El Fers got Fuld together with an arranger, and in 1997 they recorded The Legend.

Suddenly, Fuld was a star again. Sony gave him a contract, and he was taken to meet the Dutch royal family. Sadly, however, he died a few months after the release of The Legend, aged 84. He went out on a high, with a new following and a new wife.

The fusion of the heartfelt sounds of Yiddish and the Arab Middle East resonate still in Leo Fuld's work. People loved him because he sang from the heart. No more wandering for him.

The Legend is available from Hippo Records (www.hipporecords.nl)

Linda Grand on Thursday July 26, 2007 in The Guardian (London Newspaper)

Leo Fuld & Railand: Moishele, Mein Freind.

The Legend is available from:
Hippo Records

Review last recording Leo Fuld produced by Mohamed el-Fers

Songlines June 2006:
A thorough rehabilitation
of the Jewish standard songbook

Here, Lazarus ‘Leo’ Fuld, the one-time king of Yiddish music, caps a 60-year career with a riveting reinvention of the old European Jewish song repertoire that the likes of Sophie Tucker and Barbra Streisand rendered such saccharine showbiz fare.

This is the Yiddish folk poetry of authors such as Mordechai Gebirtig, celebrating life in the old shtetls of Middle Europe.

Fuld, a Dutch-born one-time rabbinical student and cantor, made it his own through a career which took him from being an Amsterdam singing waiter to the star of Broadway and concert halls from Paris to Buenos Aires. Also, of course, Tunis and Cairo – indeed, Oum Kalthoum attended Fuld’s 50s performances at the Auberge de Pyramides. And it is the submerged Middle Eastern heritage within this music that this new record makes its ace.

Arranger Kees Post has treated Fuld’s songs to striking new arrangements – tight swathes of Oriental violin, eerie and sinuous woodwinds and accordions, and sombre double bass – which bring out the pathos but not the sentimentality of Fuld’s light but world-weary voice and provide considerable drama. So brilliantly noir is the orchestral prelude to ‘Fraitag oif der Nacht’ that it’s as much Fritz Lang horror film soundtrack as Sabbath party song, while the languorously menacing oboe of ‘My Yiddishe Mama’ brings to mind Salomé and the head of John the Baptist as much as the dear little grey-haired chicken-soup-maker of the title.

Fuld died shortly after making this record, which he apparently considered his crowning achievement.
One can understand why.
Philip Sweeney in Songlines - juni 2006
See the pdf

2007: Ten years after the death of Leo Fuld
The Year of Yiddish Music

If one picture is worth a thousand words, one song is worth at least a thousand pictures. The very best Yiddish songs by the King of Yiddish music! Hearing is believing! This will be the first time you'll hear Leo Fuld sing his million-sellers in this extra oriental style. Did Mordechai Gebirtig ever sound more moving as on this album? No, not another re-release of old stock, but a brand new digital recording of the instantly recognisable and attractive voice of Leo Fuld. For the first time recreating like it was in Cairo, Buenos Aires, New York, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Tunis, Addis Abeba, Paris... Still in great shape at the age of 84, Leo Fuld was performing on the National Holiday for Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands. This album is pure history. Recorded a few months before the King of Yiddish Music passed away. `The Legend', produced by Mohamed el-Fers, was the crown on his career.

Leo Fuld: The Legend
The recording of that album was what Leo Fuld called `a dream becoming true'. Abandoning the `Broadway-tradition' and returning to the roots of Yiddish music: Europe and the Middle East. Adding an overtone of tender melancholy, missed for so many years. Ten years after the recording and death of The Legend his legacy will be hounoured during MokumTV's Year of Yiddish Music. As well a tribute to the late Mira Rafalowicz (1941-1998).

Life and work of the late Leo Fuld
Born into a modest family of eight children it was during his study at the Amsterdam Jewish Seminary when his unique voice was discovered. Only sixteen years old he was sent all over the country to the Jewish congregations to serve as cantor on Sabbath. This background was of essential influence on his later career with Yiddish songs. Fuld was eighteen when he became the very first Dutch singer performing at the BBC. In 1936 he was a star on Broadway, New York.
His recordings of `My Yiddishe Mama', `Dos Pintele Yid' and `Mein Shtetele Belz' were giant hits in the Old and New World. Fuld was the King of Yiddish Music. Just two months before the nazi's occupied his country, Fuld left for a second American tour. Except his sister, the whole Fuld-family died in the German destruction-camps. He wrote about his early years in his autobiograpy Refugee in 1972.

The Four Wives of Leo Fuld
He married for the first time in Rotterdam with Marjorie Winifred Gotlib, born in Stretford Lancaster Engeland, daughter of the musician Salomon Gotlib and Hanna van der Sluis. Soon after he divorced and married April 12, 1937 in New York with Sjaan (Dutch pronunciation for Jeanne) from Beverwijk and divorsed her in 1970 to marrie with Ilone Mendels. Daughter Mirjam Fuld married Levy Lelah and their son Jeremy Set Lelah had his bar-mitzvah in 2006 in Las Vegas NV on Leo's birthday. After Fuld divorsed Ilone in Las Vegas, he returned to Holland. Less then a year before he passed away, Leo married for the fourth time.

Leo Fuld his last recording
Leo was in great shape when he made this faithful reconstruction of some of his historic performances in Europe and the Middle East. The recording of 'The Legend' was what Leo Fuld called `a dream becoming true'. It's a `moifes' that despite his age he could add that overtone of tender melancholy unknown to the Broadway-tradition.The Legend was the first Yiddish recording ever made by an African record company. It took twice the studio-time to produce this as the Beatles did with Sgt. Pepper. `No effort at all', according to Robert Bierings, president of Hippo records. His aim was to make the very best recording ever of the King Of Yiddish Music when he signed up with Ghana-based Hippo Records.Leo Fuld sold already a solid 30 million records all over the world.

Best ever
But it surprised the legendary singer that producer Mohamed el-Fers wanted more than just good songs and first class arrangements. It was the president of Hippo records, Rob Bierings, who introduced arranger Kees Post to producer el-Fers.

The arrangers was sometimes producing and the producer was arranging to realize the best recording ever made by Leo Fuld. It's sad that this was also his very last recording. But certain one of his very best!

Odetta Clarence UKFM June 9, 2007

LEO FULD
Leo Fuld was the last performer of the Yiddish popular ballads, who´s career started well before the 2nd World War and ended short before his death in 1997. In 1938 he hit Broadway and recorded and performed with well-known artists like Frank Sinatra or Edith Piaf. Just a few moths for his death he performed with the Algerian rockgroup Railand and recorded ´The Legend´.

Never before Yiddish music sounded so oriental as on The Legend, produced by Mohamed el-Fers and arranged by Kees Post. The Legend was so refreshing after decades of being earnest and very serious about the almost lost heritage of Yiddish music. Although that great CD itself might be hard to get, due to distribution-problems. It is more than just great pearls of Yiddish music what Fuld recorded a few months before his death.

• Listen and or buy The Legend CD at Hippo Records
• Read the Songlines review - juni 2006 (pdf)
• Read about Fuld in Wikipedia

And in Dutch:

• Leo Fuld by Wikipedia Nederlands
• Leo Fuld bij Geschiedenis.nl

All the songs from The Legend album

MY YIDDISHE MAMA (EXTRA ORIENTAL) (Jack Yellen/Ben Pollack)

Fuld's trade-mark as it sounded in the fifties during his concerts in the Auberge des Pyramides in Cairo. It was during this time the legendary Egyptian singer Oum Kalsoum came to see Fuld. Leo surprised her by singing in Arabic, but she insisted to hear `Yiddishe Mama'. The next day Fuld rehearsed with the orchestra and when Oum Kalsoum came again he surprised her with a `Mama' in `extra oriental style'.

The song was written in 1925 by the Poland born Jack Yellen, together with drummer, vocalist, bandleader Ben Pollack. Yellen also co-wrote `Ain't She Sweet' and `Happy Day's Are Here Again'. Sophie Tucker made `Mama' a top 5 USA hit in 1928, English on one side and Yiddish on the B-side. Fuld combined both in one track and made it a hit in the rest of the world.

OIF'N WEG STEHT A BOIM (Itsik Manger)

`By the wayside stands a tree bent against the storm. All the birds have left it alone. I will become a bird and sit in the tree to comfort it during the winter with my songs. 'No, Leo', mother weeps, 'you will freeze to death in that tree. But if you must, put on your scarf and your galoshes, wear your fur hat and warm underwear.' I lift up my wings but cannot fly. All those clothes mamma puts on her weak nestling are too heavy. Sadly I gaze into my mothers eyes. Her love didn't let me become a bird.'

Many of the songs by the well-known Yiddish poet Itsik Manger (1901-1969) are based on folk songs. That was also the case with `Oif'n weg steht a boim'. A Yiddish song does not have to sound static after it is fixed as `a standard'.

MEIN SHTETELE BELZ (Jacob Jacobs/Alexander Olshanetsky)

Beltz is a moving evocation of a happy childhood spent in a shtetl:`Tell me quick, old man, now I want to know everything. How's that little house that once sparkled? Does the little tree I planted still bloom? ' But 'That little house is old, overgrown with grass, the old roof crumbles, windows are without glass, the attic is crooked, the walls bent. You'd never recognize it.'

`Belz, my little town Belz, my little home where I spend my childhood years. In that poor little house where I laughed with all the children. Every Sabbath I'd run to read by the river. Belz, where I had so many beautiful dreams.'

One of the most popular Yiddish songs depict childhood and expressed his longing for this Eastern European town. The Moldavian town Belz in Bessarabia is now called Beltsi (or Balti in Moldovan/Romanian), and is located in Bessarabia, presently the Moldova Republic in the former USSR, just about 60 km north of the Roumanian city of Yaas (now Iasi), as Bessarabia also known from a Fuld-song. In Beltz `To read by the river' must be the tributary of the Dnestr-river, who rises in Carpathians and flows 1400 km later into the Black Sea.

GRIENEN DAG (Moishe Oysher/Zalman Rozental)

`Near my town there's a little house with a green roof and many trees around. Father, mother, my sister Resele and I, all four of us live there together. Father works hard all his life and when he returns home, he sometimes brings presents: a horse that neighs named Mitsich, a dog that barks named Tsutsik. He brings a snow-white goose, and a hen that clucks, clucks until she lays an egg. Mother puts the hen over the eggs and, oh, what a `moifes', miracle! We have pretty chicks! And father brings a goat that shakes his beard, and when you put that goat before the wagon, by itself it becomes a horse! And my father, mother, Resele and I, since a long time we live happy in that little house with the green roof.'

Zalman Rozental (1892-1959) wrote the words of this song, published in 1925 as `Bay dem stetl'. Fuld recorded it on a different melody written by the famous Cantor Moishe Oysher (1906-1958) as `Grienen Dag'.

MOISHELE, MEIN FREIND (Mordechai Gebirtig)

`How are you, Moishele? You were my chabber (friend) many years ago. Remember our pranks in kheyder (religious school), and the Rebe with his stick? And how are all our other friends from these days? How often I think of them: Samele, Josele, Awremele... your sister Rochele, who was the love of Berele and hated me without reason and left me with a never healed wound in my soul. I dreamed of us as children, that I was again amidst you. But we're old Jews now...'

A few months before Fuld recorded his `Moishele' he performed on Dutch National television, accompanied by the North African rockgroup Railand. Fuld relived the sad but wonderful years of his youth. It was a sensation and he had to encore five times!

FRAITAG OIF DER NACHT (Trad. arr. C. Post)

`In my neigbourhood people lived in poverty, but tried to make some savings for the Sabbath-evening. For a little piece of meat, some wine, a merry wife and every Jew felt like a King. On Friday night singing and laughter replaced the sorrow of the day for a moment'.

After Fuld sang `Fraitag' during a party with Albert Einstein, the genius commented: `These Yiddish folksongs, why they are the most sincere, the most heartfelt I have heard anywhere? They are the truest expression of the soul of a people!'

DOS PINTELE YID (Arnold Perlmitter/Herman Wohl/Louis Gilrod)

`Little Jew, your crown is the spark of Jewishness. You suffered greatly for this, your limbs tormented, your brothers tortured, everyone bathed in your blood. Countless libels were leveled against you, still that spark remains strong...'

Probably world's most famous bar-mitzvah song. The public reading of the Torah (first five books of the Bible) is a symbol of maturity, the first demonstration of being a full member of the community. `Dos Pintele Yid' was the titlesong of a play by Boris Thomasheftsky in 1909. Words by Louis Gilrod, music by Arnold Perlmutter and Herman Wohl.

SHEIN WIE DIE LEWONE (Joseph Rumshinsky/Chaim Tauber)

`Pretty as the moon, bright as the stars, you are a heaven-sent gift to me.'

`Sure Fuld can deliver a song and for sure he's the man who kept the tradition and shaped Yiddish music into what it is today', said Chaim Tauber (1901-1972) when he first heard Leo sing his `Schein Wie Die Lewone'. The composer of this beautiful song is Joseph Rumshinsky (1881-1956).

GESSELACH (Max Kletter)

`Old houses and fences of broken boards. No money to buy anything but bread. But when the musician come to play, we're happy to throw a few `grosschen' out of the window.

That narrow `gesselach', among family and friends, in better and worse. The crooked and narrow streets, the working field of the fiddler.'

Childhood remembered in this song written by Leo's friend Max Kletter: `Max wrote it in 1942. When I returned from the USA to that little street of my European childhood, the houses were bombed by the Germans, and gone were my father, mother, brother...

Just one sister survived.'

AZ DER REBBE TANTST (Trad. arr. C. Post)

`When the Rabbi dances, all the Hassidim dance. When the Rabbi sings, all the Hassidim sing. When the Rabbi laughs, all the Hassidim laugh and when the Rabbi sleeps, all the Hassidim sleep.'

To the Hassidim, singing and dancing was like praying. Like the dervish'mystics they sought to achieve a state of ecstasy. The folksong `Az Der Rebbe Tantst' passed on through oral transmission when the young Fuld served as a sjammes in a Polish Synagogue. A variant of this song was published by Joel Engel in a children's game song in 1916.

WO AHIN SOLL ICH GEH'N (S. Korntayer/Oscar Strock/Leo Fuld)

When Edith Piaf was introduced to Leo Fuld, she approached him singing `Wo Ahin Soll Ich Geh'n'. For fourteen weeks Piaf and Fuld shared the stage of the Paris ABC-theatre. Fuld wrote the English text of `Wo Ahin Soll Ich Geh'n' in ten minutes. He made it a million-seller and later it was recorded by a few dozen others: Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Miriam Makeba...

And then, in 1997, he himself recorded this refreshing version, as if it was 1948 and Leo was singing in the Frank Sinatra'Show.

DER SIDEREL (YIDDELE BRIEDEREL) (Joseph Kammen/Louis Gilrod)

`Oppressed and persecuted, the Sider (prayerbook) is the Jew's companion and integral part of his life. Comforting as disasters are ruining lives and minds.'

This song was a big hit in the Yewish play `Der Siderel' in the thirties. It was for years on the Fuld-repertoire until the Second World War started. He never sung it again after the war until he made this beautiful recording in 1997.

A KLESMER YINGEL (OI MAMME! BIN ICH FARLIEBT) (Abe Ellstein)

`So, when a girl of good family falls in love with a travelling musician? Hold me, Mamma, when I look in his dark eyes while he's playing one of his iree songs I can't control myself.'

Abraham Ellstein (1907-1963) wrote also the music for `Yidl mit'n fidl', titlesong from the Yiddish film with the same name starring Molly Picon. `Oi Mamme! Bin Ich Farliebt' was one of Fulds hits in the late thirties.

RESELE (Mordechai Gebirtig)

`In a quiet street, in the attic of a little house lives my dear Rezele. Every evening I pass under her window, whistle and call her to come, come, come. A window opens, the old house awakens and Rezele's voice is heard: 'Wait a little, I shall soon be ready. Walk around in the street a while.' Cheerfully I walk, singing and cracking nuts, listening to the pattern of her feet skipping down the steps. I embrace and kiss her, come, come come. 'I beg you, Davidl, not to whistle anymore. Mother is upset, for it is not polite for Jewish boys to whistle. Just give me a signal in Yiddish when you call'. I won't whistle anymore. I will even become pious because of you. I will be as observant as your mother and go to the synagogue every Sabbath. 'I believe you, my dearest, and for that I shall knit you a bag for your `tefillin' with a Star of David. And if people admire it, tell them your Rezele made it for you.' I thank you for your gift. I love you dearly, Rezele. I love your mother, love the street, the little old house. I love the stones near your house since you walk on them. But listen, your mother is already calling you to come home. So cheerfully I go my way, singing and cracking nuts, listening to the pattern of her feet on the steps. Again the house and street fall silent. Come to me in my dreams, Rezel, come...'

Like `Moishele' this song is by Mordechai Gebirtig (1877-1942), one of the greatest and last Yiddish folk poets, killed by the nazi's. Fuld always loved his simple folklike songs, popular in Eastern Europe and throughout the Jewish world.

OIF'N PRIPETSHIK (Mark Warshawsky, arr. C. Post)

`Remember children, what you're learning here. Say and repeat it over again: the letter `kometz Alef' is pronounced: O. When you grow older you'll understand that this alphabet contains the tears and weeping of our people.'

Leo Fuld was admitted to kheyder from the age of four. In this dimly lit but well-heated schoolroom the seeds of learning were planted. The Rabbi teaches the children the first letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

The song is written by Mark Warshawsky, a discovery of Sholom Aleichem. In 1953 Fuld gave a concert in the local foundouq of el-Ghriba during the Lag B'Omer Festival. He sung to celebrate that 2500 years ago a cedarwood door from the Temple was brought from Jerusalem to Tunisia. This is a reconstruction of that hot Tunisian night, when Fuld was accompanied by the kapelle of Yacub B'chiri.

Leo Fuld (left) was the man who discovered Armenian singer Charles Aznavour.

Albert Einstein about the King of Yiddish music...

`These Yiddish folksongs, why they are the most sincere, the most heartfelt I have heard anywhere? They are the truest expression of the soul of a people!'

Albert Einstein.

The Sgt Pepper of Yiddish music

Singer-songwriter Leo Fuld, who was called the last performer of the Yiddish popular ballads, died in Amsterdam in 1997 after an extended international career. He recorded a few months before his death ´The Sgt. Pepper of Yiddish Music´.

It's a `moifes', a miracle! It's pure history:

• THE LEGEND - LEO FULD
• Released in 1997 by HiPPO records
• Produced and arranged by Mohamed el-Fers and Kees Post.
• Executive producer: Rob Bierings.
• Engineered by Dennis Mulder.
• Vocal postrecorings by Andrew Fernihough
• Leo Fuld's vocal was digital recorded at Bill & Ted's Excellent Recordingstudio Amsterdam 9th, 16th, 31th January and 6th and 21th February 1997.
• Orchestral arrangements digital recorded in Hippo's recordingstudio Accra and Amsterdam between 27th October 1996 and 31th July 1997.
• Mixed by Dennis Mulder at Bill & Ted's 1th -3th August 1997.
• Mastered at Mediatrack Amsterdam by Hans Strikkers.
• Covedesignr: Jasper Hazevoet and Mohamed el-Fers
• Thanks to Henny Ree; Rogier 'DataPoint' Pointl; Lin Sargent; Murat Kirbacoglu; Arris Oliemans and Rene Zwaap.
• In the medietheek Jewish Historical Museum Amsterdam
• Read the Songlines review - juni 2006 (pdf)

Leo was alive and kicking til the very last day and was accompanied during his last television-performance by an Algerian Rai-band.

Video´s and films with the King of Yiddish music...:

• LEO FULD with RAILAND
  Final of VARA television Kopspijkers with Jack Spijkerman.
• IK ZING DE WERELD ROND
  Netherlands 1994 Screenwriter: Leo Fuld, Director: Mohamed el-Fers. Running time: 60 min. S-VHS in Dutch version. Broadcasted by MokumTV on the Amsterdam Salto Network. Broadcasttape with original material was lost at Salto, there is a VHS-copy in the mediatheek Jewish Historical Museum Amsterdam
• A YIDDISH X-MAS IN AMSTERDAM
  Netherlands 1995 With Leo Fuld and Daphne Meijer. Director: Mohamed el-Fers. Running time: 60 min. S-VHS in Dutch version. Broadcasted by Salto Omroepstichting Amsterdam. In the Mediatheek Jewish Historical Museum Amsterdam
• THE INTERNATIONAL SINGING STAR LEO FULD
  Netherlands 1993 Screenwriter: Eveline van Dyck, Director of photography: Fred Mekenkamp, Director: Netty van Hoorn. Running time: 65 min. 16 mm fim in a Dutch and English version. Distributed by Dutch Film Promotion Jan Luykenstraat 2, 107 ICM Amsterdam. In the mediatheek Jewish Historical Museum Amsterdam
• THE LEGEND (TRAILER ONLY)
  Netherlands 1996 Screenwriters: Leo Fuld, Mohamed el-Fers. Trailer for a MokumTV-serie with Bep Fuld-van Laarhoven, Levent Gemici, Zeki Güngör, Boris Yalçin and Leo Fuld. Running time: 6.56 min. S-VHS in Dutch with music The Legend composed by Kees Post. Broadcasted by Salto Omroepstichting Amsterdam.
• FULD IN RAILAND
  Netherlands 1997 Screenwriter/Director: Mohamed el-Fers. Running time: 60 min. S-VHS in Dutch version. Broadcasted by Salto Omroepstichting Amsterdam.
• THE KING OF YIDDISH MUSIC MEETS QUEEN BEATRIX
  Netherlands 1997 Screenwriter/Director: Mohamed el-Fers. Running time: 60 min. S-VHS in Dutch version. Broadcasted by Salto Omroepstichting Amsterdam.
• OIF´M WEG STANT MAL A BOIM - GOODBYE LEO
  Netherlands 1997 Director: Mohamed el-Fers. Director of photography funeral Leo Fuld: Ria van Eck, Dick van der Geld. Running time: 60 min. S-VHS in Dutch version. Broadcasted by Salto Omroepstichting Amsterdam.
• THE LEGEND
  To be made by Mohamed el-Fers and to be broadcasted in 2007 as part of the Year of Yiddish Music and the 10th anniversary of Leo Fuld's death in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. To be broadcasted by Salto Omroepstichting Amsterdam.

Other recordings of the King of Yiddish music...

Seeco CELP 420 (Popular) Series
CELP-420 - My Song Goes 'Round the World - Leo Fuld [1959] My Song Goes 'Round the World/Pigalle/Zigany Melody/Vienna Dreams/Miserlou/Song of the Negev/Windmill Song/C'est Si Bon/Reflections on the Water/Meine Mutter/Yaass

Jeweler Sidney Siegel reportedly in 1943 poured the assets of his Casa Siegel jewelry store into the founding of a record label and launched a full-fledged American operation, Seeco Records and its sister label Tropical. Seeco was a "world music" label long before the term had been coined and the direct forerunner of present-day companies like Putumayo and Island Records. The label's top-selling artists included Vicentico Valdés, singer with Tito Puente's orchestra, Celia Cruz and the King of Yiddish Music Leo Fuld.

Sony CD Shalom Israel
SONY - Shalom Israel - Leo Fuld (1962/63) Yass/My Yiddishe Mamme/Vie Ahein Zol Ich Gein/Shalom Israel/In Der Finster/Mamele/Ich Sing/Moshiach/Unter Boimen/Glick/  Kaddish/Wis Gevein Ist Gevein/Ich Hob Dich Tzu Fil Lieb/Mazel/Doina/Moishele Mein Friend/Mien Kind/Bessarabia/Yiddish Gessel/Mazel...Nur Nit Far Mir/Tzigany Melody/Oif'n Veyg Shteit A Boim/Polish Yidle/Dona, Dona, Dona/Eretz Zavat Halav/Dos Pintele Yid/Meshugeh
The 2 CBS/Columbia albums My Yiddishe Mamme and Shalom Israel on 1 CD

King and Queen
Her Royal Highness Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands was extremely happy that the King of Yiddish music presented her a few months before his death his last recording. During his last television-show, Yiddish singer Fuld was accompanied by the Algerian musicgroup Railand.

During World War II, while Fuld was living in the U.S., he lost nearly his entire family. Until his death he was not able to discuss that topic with his remaining sister and nieces. In his simple apartment in Amsterdam, the singer was still writing songs and felt all but lonely: "I never get tired of my own company." In the last year of his life, at the age of 84 he recorded what is considered the Sgt. Pepper of Yiddish Music: The Legend. History is understood, more fully comprehended, through the pearls of Yiddish music as sung by the truly great interpreter of the genre: Lazarus AKA Leo Fuld (1912-1997).

The Legend Leo Fuld and the late Prince Claus
Singer-songwriter Leo Fuld, the last performer of the Yiddish popular ballads, died in Amsterdam in 1997 after an extended international career. Here a scene from a MokumTV documentairy when His Royal Highness prince Claus of the Netherlands shakes hands with Leo Fuld.

October 1934

The Daily Herald, Monday 15 Oct/34, pg. 10 gives an account of the concerts Leo Fuld gave with Jack Hylton & Band at the London Palladium. Fuld is surrounded by 16 Palladium Girls. In the same show the 4 Ink Spots(1st time in London), 3 Gaylors, Dave & Joe O’Gormon, Bernice & Emily, Hazel Mangean Girls, Tessie O’Shea and Alec Templeton. More on http://inkspots.ca/ACTIVITIES-34-40.htm

1956 B'Ein Moledet

In 1956 Fuld was the producer and co-writer of "B'Ein Moledet" together with director by Nuri Habib. The Cast (in alphabetical order) was Amos Arikha, Sa'adia Damari, Shoshana Damari, Ethan Freiber, Ezra Levi, Amnon Mingen, Avraham Omer, Shaike Ophir, Ethan Ovadiah and Kadouri Shaharbani. Original Music by Moshe Wilensky. Choreographer was Vera Goldman and cinematography by Nuri Koukou. Film Editing by Nuri Habib and Nuri Koukou

Read the Songlines review - juni 2006 (pdf)

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