THE KLEZMATICS: ‘WOODY GUTHRIE’S HAPPY JOYOUS HANUKKAH’ (Jewish Music Group).

By JON PARELES

Published: December 1, 2006, The New York Times
THE KLEZMATICS: ‘WOODY GUTHRIE’S HAPPY JOYOUS HANUKKAH’ (Jewish Music Group). Living in Brooklyn with a Jewish wife and a major Yiddish poet for his mother-in-law, Woody Guthrie wrote on Jewish topics in the 1940s — topics including Hanukkah, as the Klezmatics found when they were given access to a trove of previously unknown Guthrie lyrics. Some were light-hearted ditties like Guthrie’s songs for children; some, like ”Happy Joyous Hanuka,” compressed the holiday’s history and meaning into colloquial verses. The accordion-pumped oompah of traditional klezmer recurs through the album, but the Klezmatics don’t confine themselves: there’s also a countryish polka and some mountain gospel-style harmonies. And for ”The Many and the Few,” which treats Hanukkah in geopolitical terms, Guthrie left behind a melody that could be an Appalachian ballad.