Today we’d like to introduce you to Corned Beef Hash.
Hi Corned Beef, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Each of us has walked our own journey to the Corned Beef Hash cultural crossroads.
Our fiddler David grew up going to Maryland Irish festivals and listened to klezmer music at home. When he rediscovered Irish music in high school, it spoke to him in a big way. His interest in Irish music tremendously picked up when he went to college in New York City. He got heavily involved in the Irish traditional music scene while living there. With NYC being a huge hub of Irish and klezmer, he was able to study with some of his musical heroes. His zest for Irish fiddle and dance also led him to French-Canadian music, which is similar in some ways.
Our drummer Nick is an accomplished vocalist, mandolinist, composer, and front man for the local bluegrass band Cherry Blossom Special. He had already worked on one project exploring his Jewish identity. As a COVID-19 pandemic project, he got a bodhrán (Irish hand drum) and started learning to play it.
Our guitarist and singer Jacob started out playing rock, jazz, and Appalachian old-time music, but a week at an Irish festival as a teenager hooked him. He dove into the Irish traditional scene and hardly looked back, adding numerous instruments to his repertoire over the years. During the pandemic, Jacob decided to connect with his Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jewish heritage by learning Yiddish. He discovered a new love for Yiddish folk songs and even started organizing Yiddish song circles and other Yiddish cultural events in the DC area.
Nick wanted an excuse to play more bodhrán and learn new mandolin genres, and David wanted a place to play tunes from all three of his favorite folk genres. When they asked Jacob to join the band, he agreed to do so on the condition that they would let him sing in Yiddish, too. They agreed, of course, and the rest was history.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Our collaboration has been largely smooth and fruitful: we have a lot of fun building arrangements and playing with ideas together. Despite the Jewish stereotype of debating everything, we stay open to each other’s ideas and friendly criticisms, testing what works and what doesn’t in a democratic and respectful way. We do almost everything by consensus, and we tend to be of the same mind about things.
The biggest struggle has been logistical. With half of our collective feet in Baltimore and half in the DC area, plus families and day jobs, it’s hard to make time for practicing and lining up gigs! But we find a way, and the time that we put into crafting our arrangements really pays off when we see the smiles, hear the singing, and feel the energy at our shows.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
As far as we know, Corned Beef Hash is the world’s only folk band that brings together the best of Celtic, Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jewish, and French-Canadian musical traditions. While there have been some excellent one-off projects that explore two of the three together, we’re the only known band braiding together all three strands and doing it on a full-time basis.
A century ago, this happened a lot more in American cities. Irish immigrant communities had their dance-hall bands, Eastern European Jews had their klezmer orchestras. They played lots of arrangements of tunes from the old countries, but they also added popular favorites from other genres, including, in all likelihood, each other’s. The same synergy happened in song: Irish-American variety shows and Yiddish musical theater not only spawned hits that we now take for granted as folk songs, they also helped make Broadway what it is.
We honor that cultural cross-pollination in our name, Corned Beef Hash. Back in Ireland, British landlords grew beef for export, which was more lucrative than feeding the impoverished population. So for Irish immigrants, affordable beef was a sign of luxury. At the same time, living alongside Jewish immigrants, they couldn’t get their familiar bacon at kosher butcher shops. Corned beef was the next best thing, and so corned beef became an integral part of Irish American cuisine thanks to their Jewish neighbors. Two sets of people met with their distinct cultural traditions and histories, and the contact birthed a new tradition.
Although family ties aren’t necessary to enjoy and participate in these traditions, it happens that each of us is Ashkenazi Jewish and two of us also have Irish and Scottish ancestry. So we ourselves are the “only in America” products of this cross-cultural contact.
In any case, we’re also trying to mirror the cross-cultural conversation in our music. We might arrange a medley of Scottish reels back-to-back with driving klezmer dance tunes and finish it all off with a Quebecois-style tune written by our fiddler David. Or our guitarist and singer Jacob will bring a Yiddish folk song, which we intersperse with pieces of an Irish jig. Nick is also a master mandolinist, and Jacob grew up in Appalachia, so we even have some Yiddish songs that we’ve tricked out with virtuosic bluegrass breakdowns. Other genre influences from our youth creep in at the edges: a funk jam here, grunge chords there, even nods to The Pogues and Destiny’s Child.
Postmodern mashups aside, the Celtic-klezmer fusion really seems to fire up audiences. Our shows are met with big smiles, big laughs, big dance energy, and big singalongs in Yiddish–a language that’s supposedly endangered but experiencing a scrappy revival. We’d like to think that part of the excitement is in our arrangements, which we build and hone for maximum thrills. But we’re constantly met with audience members with their own family and travel stories across the Celtic and Jewish traditions. It feels like we are really tapping into a rich vein of feeling and giving people a way to connect with something truly fulfilling.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
David: Of the many that stick out to me, I would say playing music at family gatherings during the summer and holiday breaks. Whether it would be singalongs or jam sessions, I feel very privileged to have vast musical experiences growing up. As stated before, the music festivals I attended as a kid also made a huge impact.
Nick: As a really young kid, I would not sit still to watch your typical Disney movies and cartoons you would usually expect to put in front of a kid. At the time, my dad was learning electric guitar. When he would put on tapes of guitar instruction or Pink Floyd live concerts, I would sit and be hypnotized by it.
Jacob: Learning about art, dance, and theater at my godmother’s performing arts school. We made elaborate masks and costumes, studied anatomy and movement, and learned how to make our voices ring out across a space, even without microphones. It was a magical place, an island of creativity on top of a hill in Appalachia, where kids could learn how to channel their freedom, try out personas, and express their imagination with confidence. And she taught me a lot about the Jewish value of helping to heal the world. I bring lessons that she taught me into every show.
Pricing:
- We’re always happy to work out a fee that reflects the specifics of a given performance.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cornedbeefhashband.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cornedbeefhashband/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cornedbeefhashband
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CornedBeefHashBand/
Image Credit:
Corned Beef Hash
Christopher Creese
Daniel Afzal
