Moroccan Grooves, Blogged: Jewish Morocco Featured on Tablet Mag

A sampling of North African 45s.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Sara Ivry at Tablet Magazine last week to record this piece on a history of Jewish musicians in Morocco, my quest to find their recordings and how my personal musical history fits in to all of this. I digitized some Samy Elmaghribi, Line Monty and Cheikh Mwijo especially for the podcast so I hope everyone enjoys.

Here is the introductory text from Tablet:

By day, Chris Silver works for a Jewish task force trying to raise awareness about civic inequalities facing Israel’s Arab citizens. But he dedicates his free time to Jews in an Arab land, with his blog, Jewish Morocco. Silver created the blog in 2008, while traveling in Morocco, as a way of sharing the stories, photographs, and other artifacts he was collecting to document what Jewish life there had been like in its heyday. Along the way, he developed a particular interest in the country’s Jewish musicians and singers—characters who were beloved by Moroccans of all backgrounds, and to whom he gives ample space on his blog. Silver joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about some of the unique voices he’s discovered, what happened to Jewish Moroccan singers once they left the country in the 1950s and ’60s, and where he gets his missionary zeal (hint: It has to do with Bob Dylan; Mama Cass; Bill Cosby; and Chris’s dad, Roy). [Running time: 25:55.]

Listen to the podcast here: http://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/101311/moroccan-grooves-blogged

I'll be posting more in a few weeks including some pieces that didn't make it in the final edit - so keep an eye and ear out for fresh posts.