Merna
Barry (1923 - 1976)
Claire
Barry (1920 - 2014)
So what is Yiddish (if you don’t know
already)?
Simplified, it’s a combo of German and
Hebrew. Just prior to World War II,
there were approximately eleven million
Yiddish speakers in the world.
Now? Estimates range from 250,000 to
600,000.
When the Barry Sisters were young, the
Catskill Mountains in New York state (aka the
“Jewish Mountains” or “The Borscht Belt”) had
scads of small summer colonies of bungalows as
well as big sophisticated hotels which
provided copious opportunities for Yiddish
entertainers to ply their trade.
Claire
and Merna were very popular singers on this
circuit.
When the world for Yiddish entertainers became
bigger, covering other parts of the US, they
went on the top-flight Mickey Katz tour
(Mickey Katz, you might want to know, was Joel
Grey’s father and Jennifer Grey’s
grandfather).
"The
Borscht Capades" - 1951
Patsy
Abbott, Phil Foster, Mickey Katz, The Barry
Sisters, Jack Hilliard, Dave Barry, and
Raaschi.
There isn’t film available of the early Barry
Sisters, but here are some examples of them
singing swing -- in Yiddish:
This song was made famous by the Andrews
Sisters:
Bei
Mir Bist du Shoen
(translation: To Me, You Are Beautiful)
As
they matured, the Barry Sisters glammed up
with matching gowns created for them by a
Canadian couturiere, Madame Étoile.
And
they began to sing in English as well as
Yiddish, which considerably widened their
popularity and fame.
They appeared on the Red Skelton variety tv
show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,
The Jack Paar Show, and on Ed Sullivan 6
times.
Here’s
a clip of them on The Ed Sullivan Show:
Sullivan
asked the Barry Sisters to join one of the
first groups of American entertainers to
perform in Moscow during the Cold War.
That
began a love affair between the Barry
Sisters and Russian fans, many of whom later
smuggled their LPs into Russia.
Around the same time, they became the
darlings of A-list nightclubs in New York,
Miami and Las Vegas.
Here’s another TV clip from 1963 of the
Barry Sisters singing in English:
All
of You
If
you’ve ever been to a Jewish wedding or a
bar (or bat) mitzvah celebration, you’ve
heard this classic and joyous Jewish dance
song sung in Yiddish and English:
Hava
Nagila
This
is a late clip of the Barry Sisters from
what I suspect is the early 70’s when they
were 50ish and looking fabulous in pantsuits
and matching wigs:
Nu,
Zug Mir Shoyn Ven...
Clearly,
The Barry Sisters could have gone on for
decades, but, tragically, Merna developed
a brain tumor and died in 1976 at the age
of 53.
Let’s
remember the two of them singing this
soaring song, complete with a crying
clarinet intro, about longing for the
country of one’s birth:
Rumania,
Rumania
|