Wolf Krakowski is a Yiddish-speaking song-writer, singer, and guitarist. He was born in 1947 at Saalfelden Farmach, an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n camp for displaced person

Displaced person

A displaced person is a person who has been forced to leave his or her native place, a phenomenon known as forced migration.- Origin of term :...

s, where his parents, who were Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 Jews who survived the Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

 in Russia, lived for a short while after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Soon afterwards they moved to Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, and the small town of Eskilstuna

Eskilstuna

Eskilstuna is a city and the seat of Eskilstuna Municipality, Södermanland County, Sweden with 60,185 inhabitants in 2005. Eskilstuna has a large Sweden Finn population....

, where the family stayed until 1954 when they moved to Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

As a young man Krakowski took to the road, working with the Conklin and Garrett Shows

Conklin Shows

Conklin Shows was the largest traveling amusement corporation in North America. The 75 year-old company operated 'fun fairs' at various summer agricultural shows across North America and is based in Brantford, Ontario and West Palm Beach, FL. The company has a long history in Canada, providing...

 carnival and later toured for some time with blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

-singer Big Joe Williams

Big Joe Williams

Joseph Lee Williams , billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar...

. He worked with street theatre

Street theatre

Street theatre is a form of theatrical performance and presentation in outdoor public spaces without a specific paying audience. These spaces can be anywhere, including shopping centres, car parks, recreational reserves and street corners. They are especially seen in outdoor spaces where there are...

, and as a carpenter

Carpenter

A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....

 and guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

-builder for many years. In 1994-1995 he worked as a videographer for the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, documenting the testimonies of over one hundred Holocaust survivors. In 1996 he released the CD Transmigrations/Gilgul on his own record label, Kame'a Media. On this record he presented traditional Yiddish songs in a blues–rock

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

–reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 vein. Among the traditional songs and credited compositions Krakowski reshaped here were: Shabes, Shabes, Friling (Springtime) and Zol Shoyn Kumen Di Geule (Let the Redemption Come), all sung by Krakowski in his first language, Yiddish. On this record, and on those that followed, he was accompanied by The Lonesome Brothers, starring roots-rock veterans, multi-instrumentalist Jim Armenti and bass guitarist Ray Mason.

Krakowski made a considerable impact in world music

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

 circles with this record, and the rights to it were taken over some years later by the well-known avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 recording company Tzadik

Tzadik

Tzadik/Zadik/Sadiq is a title given to personalities in Jewish tradition considered righteous, such as Biblical figures and later spiritual masters. The root of the word ṣadiq, is ṣ-d-q , which means "justice" or "righteousness", also the root of Tzedakah...

, led by saxophonist John Zorn

John Zorn

John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...

, who in 2002 released Krakowski's second CD in Yiddish: Goyrl: Destiny.

Between these records, Krakowski himself also released the CD Unbounded (on Kamea Media), on which he sings some of his own songs in English. In 2006, Krakowski and Jim Armenti produced the CD "Di Alte Kashe" (The Eternal Question: Fraidy Katz Sings Yiddish), also on Kame'a Media.

Krakowski lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Wolf Krakowski's official homepage

Review of Transmigrations/Gilgul by Swedish author Ingemar Johansson