As attentive readers may know, I went to college at a place called C.W. Post -- a subsidiary (if that is the right word) of Long Island Universary, whose actual, i.e. physical, campus is located in lovely Brookville, N.Y. This was between, approximately, 1968-1972, in case you were wondering.
In any event, the place was lousy with great musicians, and one of said great musicians was a guy named Michael Sternberg. Same age as me, and like moi a nice Jewish boy from the tri-state area. But unlike me, a fucking tremendous guitar player. Mostly a blues guy -- he could do Mike Bloomfield better than anybody I ever encountered, but he was also a super British Invasion afficianado. To this day, one of the most amazing things I've heard was Mike's casually tossed off version of the lead guitar part from The Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing."
A part, I might mention, that on the original Beatles record is played by TWO (count 'em) two musicians simultaenously. I.e., George Harrison and Paul McCartney. I mean, my jaw still hasn't stopped dropping after all these years.
I should add that Michael's a wonderfully talented visual artist as well; here's a self-portrait he did back in the day, and that's just what he looked like.
In any case, I stayed in touch with Michael after college; like me, he moved to Manhattan in the 80s, and I remember jamming with him and some of the Floor Models on at least one occasion during that decade. Since then I've also become Facebook buddies with him for at least ten of those years.
But here's the thing -- what I did NOT know about Michael, until a few days ago when he posted these photos over at his FB feed -- was that his mom was a big shot actress in the Yiddish theater back in the day.
I mean, are those pictures the coolest things you ever saw?
Shoot, I'm willing to bet a bunch of my relatives attended performances by his mom, on stage live, at some point.
Wow. And I'll say it again -- wow.
6 comments:
"A Girl By Mistake"? I'm sorry, your blog post is now officially banned in Florida.
The Friday evening performance would have been poorly attended, no?
(Maybe that’s when the Gentiles came, so they could get all the best seats.)
I knew my brother was a great guitarist, but reading your post
truly drives the point home! and yes he is also a wonderful singer and
fabulous artist as anyone can see by this extraordinary self portrait.
I want to share your blog, because it's so fun and accurate and surprise
about our amazing mom who was a phenomena and trailblazing Cantoress!
Marilyn Michaels
We need to know about this talented family.
Doctored Captain Al
Yes,oh! & by the way, this talent extends , on the Sternberg side , a few generations. Mother, father, son, daughter, Grandparents, all super talented in there own genre. From the paint brushes, to the myriad of voices,
So when you hear the term, oh! It runs in the family. Truer words were never spoken🎼🎨❤️👍
But don’t even get me started on his brilliant daughter…
Post a Comment