• Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Mail
Contributor Login
  • 0Shopping Cart
FolkWorks
  • Home
  • Events
  • Features
  • Resources
  • About Us
  • Archives
  • Contact
  • DONATE
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

Barry Kane – Confessions of a Gypsy Minstrel

The truth will set you free...

Art Podell

WALL SCRAWLS / Art Podell

Chapter 1 –  Beverly Hills Gypsy
Most performers appear to be ordinary folks when they are off-stage. Then there are those who by nature were born for the stage. One such member of The New Christy Minstrels was Barry Kane, who perhaps under different circumstances might have been considered an average ‘nice Jewish boy’ from Beverly Hills.  But when young Kane strode to the microphone, his maple flamenco guitar strapped to his chest, jet black hair combed back, a few fingerling strands dangling over dark eyebrows, gaze lifted as if to some far-off galaxy, you were in the presence of gypsy royalty.

It was the early sixties, and the folk song resurgence was climbing to its feet in Greenwich Village and in hundreds of coffee houses dotting the American map. It is against this background that this formidable-looking young Rasputin with burning eyes stepped into the spotlight. At the time, my heroes were Pete and Woody. Barry Kane’s hero was Theodore Bikel.

Here is a recorded performance at ‘Ledbetters,’ a club on Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles in 1964 as testimony:

https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/14-Tani-Ledbetters-Take-2.mp3

The New Christy Minstrels had just returned from winning the coveted first prize at the San Remo Music Festival in Italy where Barry had sung the lead in the winning song, Si Piangi, Si Ridi. For the remainder of our stay in Italy which lasted close to a week after the Festival, Barry could be spotted strolling the streets outside our hotels in cape, cane, fedora, and polished leather boots to the delight of the young Italian fans who immediately recognized him and followed him like baby ducks following their mother on the shore of a park pond.

A video of his performance in San Remo appears at the bottom of this article.

Stories about him abound. He was the Christy Minstrel you loved to talk about, and there was always talk, but the following has never been mentioned or disclosed and after so many years, it deserves a place in this talented performer’s legacy.

Chapter 2 – 1964: The Set-up

Earlier that year, The New Christy Minstrels were preparing to record a new album titled “Cowboys and Indians.” A grouping of songs written by several members including one by yours truly. Nick Woods offered a few gems, our producer at Columbia Records suggested a song or two that fit the theme, and we were all set to record. By today’s metrics, it still is a fine album. Many of the tracks still hold up to current taste standards.

As was our normal practice, arrangements were arranged, solos were assigned. And as usual, each member counted the number of solos he or she was assigned and compared them with the other tallies.  After all, we humans are a competitive species.

One more week on the road until we were to return to Los Angeles. The usual. Hotels, planes, concerts. Night after night. Rehearsing for the album in the afternoons between shows on the road.

One of the songs scheduled for recording was a beautifully composed song that had been crafted to sound like a Navajo chant or prayer. It was titled ‘Navajo.’

At the time, I think we were in Ohio. My hotel room phone rang. It was Barry.

“Artie, I just got off the phone with an old friend who is studying for his Ph.D. in American Indian lore at Arizona State. I told him about our songs and when I mentioned our upcoming song Navajo, he got all excited and he read me an ancient Navajo prayer that would be an incredible addition to the song. We could easily add it between the second and last verse. I’d be happy to recite the prayer and then we could continue the song to the end!”

“Great idea!,” said I, “What a lucky happenstance!”

And so we did. One week later in the studio, we paused during the second verse while Nick Woods shook a pile of wooden drumsticks in a haunting rhythm, Barry recited the prayer.

The album was a success and played thousands of times in New Christy Minstrel fans’ homes and on the radio. People loved the album, the song.

Chapter 3 – 1989: “Artie, I have a confession.”

By the end of the decade of the sixties, both Barry and I had left The New Christy Minstrels. We remained friends. In 1975, Barry asked me to join him on stage at the Wilshire-Ebel Theater where he performed a program of Russian folk songs backed by the L.A. Balalaika Orchestra. We sang a few of the old songs together and Barry was magnificent in his singing of several gypsy songs.

By 1989, the heydays of The New Christy Minstrels were well behind us and it was a new and different world. I had left music as a living. So had he. By then, both Barry and I were gainfully employed far from the world of music. We were nine-to-five family men.

On one particular Friday evening that year, we found ourselves seated at a corner table at Taylor’s Steak house in Los Angeles, talking about old times as old bandmates often do. Barry had mellowed considerably.

“Artie, I have a confession.”

“Huh?”

“Artie, do you remember the night I called you and told you about my friend at Arizona State who recited the Navajo prayer to me?”

“Yep.”

A moment’s pause.  A sip of cocktail. The familiar deep penetrating gaze.

“Artie, I didn’t have a friend at Arizona State.”

“Huh?”

“I figured that I needed a more than one juicy solo on the album, so…uh…There never was a Navajo prayer.”

“But the prayer? The Navajo dialect? So authentic sounding. The words!”

“It’s gibberish, Artie. I made the whole thing up. The friend at Arizona State, the prayer…all of it.”

“So you just made up a prayer out of thin air?”

“Yep.”

“It’s not an ancient Navajo dialect even?”

“Nope.”

Gulp.

Silence as two gentlemen at a corner table stared at each other for a minute that seemed to go on as each waited for the other to say something.

Finally: “Fooled everyone, eh?”

“Fooled me.”

The clink of two cocktail glasses as two friends seated at a corner table burst into laughter that echoed throughout the sedate restaurant. It took a while for them to quiet down.

“Wow. In all these years, all those albums sold, no one has caught on? No angry letters? Nothing?”

“I guess not.”

So there you have it. Some people get away with murder after all.

Epilogue

Barry passed in 2015. He had become a different person.  Thoughtful, relaxed, at peace with the demons that drove him as a young man, and I spent as much time with my old friend as I could in the last months of his life. He had the soul and fire of a gypsy and he left with dignity, his sins confessed. At least one that I know of. If there were others, you’re on your own.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Bonus: Barry Kane with The New Christy Minstrels at the San Remo Music Festival 1964, singing the  prize-winning song:

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share by Mail
https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/6205-Barry-Kane-with-color-accents-3001-scaled.jpg 2560 2048 Art Podell https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FolkWorks-logo-large.png Art Podell2022-03-01 00:05:192022-02-14 11:58:21

Barry Kane – Confessions of a Gypsy Minstrel

The truth will set you free...

Art Podell

All Columns

Featured Columnists

  • Art Podell
  • Chris Wilson
  • David Bragger
  • Lindsey Terrell
  • Roland Sturm
  • Ross Altman

FolkWorks Partners

Join our E-mail Community

As a valued member of our e-mail community, you will receive updates on events, stories, performances and more in our monthly newsletter, along with the occasional special announcement to give you the latest news in folk/roots. We promise your e-mail is safe with us.  We don’t sell or share our database with any third-party vendors.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

  • LIKE US ON FACEBOOK
  • JOIN THE FOLKWORKS FACEBOOK GROUP
  • BECOME A FOLKWORKS DONOR
  • ADVERTISE WITH US
YOU TUBE INSTAGRAM TWITTER EMAIL PRIVACY POLICY

All Material Copyright © 2001- 2021 FolkWorks. All rights reserved. Website by: Integritive

Scroll to top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website, analyze site traffic, and show event times in your timezone. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Accept

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy