Behind the songs with Yoav Kutner
There is none more conversant with the annals of Israeli pop and rock music than Yoav Kutner. The 65-year-old radio show presenter has been spinning discs and interviewing musicians from across a broad spectrum of artistic intent for more than four decades now. His various series at venues such as the National Library and Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem provide audiences with insight into what make popular musicians tick, and what inspired them to carve their own niche in the discipline in question.
Kutner will be back the Zuker Hall, at Tel Aviv’s Heichal Hatarbut next month, to kick start the four-part “Behind the Songs” series, beginning on November 7 with internationally renowned vocalist Achinoam Nini, and also taking in Matti Caspi, Rona Kenan and Danny Robas, all of whom are beloved fixtures on the local entertainment scene.
As a representative of the older generation, who grew up in the pre-digital, pre-Internet age, Kutner says he is looking to offer the public some added entertainment and intrigue value which you simply can’t get from just going along to a gig, or getting an audio and visual morsel from YouTube. “These days, there are lots and lots of shows. I think that, besides all the big shows, and all the artists you are familiar with, people are a little hungry for something a bit different.”
Kutner feels that the money’s worth can be had from going to his kind of chat-based slot, in addition to a clutch of numbers performed live by the star in question. And, if anyone can deliver the goods, it is Kutner. I know, from my own professional experience, for example, that Shalom Hanoch is notoriously hard to pin down for an interview. But Kutner had him on the Beit Avi Chai stage last December, playing some of his iconic numbers and also sharing some intimate stories, of how certain songs came to be, with the spellbound jam-packed Jerusalem audience.
Basically it is a matter of trust. While Hanoch may not have read too many of my articles for The Jerusalem Post, or even in Hebrew for Maariv, he knows who Kutner is, and he knows he can trust Kutner implicitly.
“I think that quite a few of our great stars are reluctant to take part in this kind of format [of the series],” Kutner says. “Someone like Shalom, or any other famous musician, agree to appear at Beit Avi Chai because they know me. They know I will approach the encounter with love and support for them and their work. I will express my love of their music, and I won’t bother them with trifles.”
Matti Caspi is a case in point. The revered singer-songwriter, who turns 70 later this month, has been at the top of the game since the mid1970s, when he released an eponymous record that pushed the local pop-rock quality ante up a couple of notches. But, when it comes to talking about himself and his music, Caspi is something of a recluse. But not when Kutner is the one asking the questions. I caught a fascinating evening with the two of them at Beit Avi Chai last year. While Caspi may come over as a little on the taciturn side, with Kutner as his interlocutor he was one of the most gracious, forthcoming and delightful of guests. “If someone like Matti Caspi agrees to take part, I’m happy,” says Kutner, with more than a touch of understatement.
The lineup of the new program is undeniably mainstream. But Kutner does not have a particular penchant for left-field artistic endeavor. Then again, there is something of a leftfield element to the Zuker Hall offering. The artistic director makes no apologies for his choices, although he notes that he has stepped outside the bounds of current accepted pop and rock entertainment wisdom. “Behind the Songs” is, he says, a series tailored primarily for the older crowd. That is partly down to Kutner’s disillusionment with some of the current crop.
“With no disrespect to anyone, many of the younger bands around today are not that interesting.”
THEN AGAIN, the veteran radio show presenter continues to do his bit for the sector, and is more than happy to spin the discs of artists he feels have something of note to add to our musical consciousness. Then again, Kutner is an advocate of the viewpoint that, if you don’t know where you have come from, you can’t know where you’re headed. “Over the past 10 years, as broadcaster, program editor and other stuff, I have redefined my role. In the past, my job was to get the new things out there, but now I have returned to the people who established our culture. I continue playing the new things, on my daily show on Galei Tzahal. But I put a lot of effort into accessing an audience of people who know that the music scene didn’t begin 10 years ago. They know there was music before that, and some of that is wonderful.”
Caspi certainly fits that quality throwback bill, while Robas and Nini have also been around the musical block a few times themselves. Even, Kenan, the youngest of the “Behind the Songs” quartet at 40, has been strutting her singer-songwriter stuff for a couple of decades. So, we’re not exactly talking hipster vibes here. Kutner’s expansive professional palette also takes in a sterling series called Tiud Yotzrim (Documenting Artists) in which he talks to leading entertainers and music professionals, across the established musical board, under the auspices of Mifal Hapayis. “Take someone like Moni Amirilio.
He’s in his 80s and he has written dozens of songs and no one knows who he is,” says Kutner. “Our children might know some of his songs, but who connects them with him?”
Kutner is doing his damnedest to get the heritage message across. “I see that part of my work as a sort of mission. Back then my mission was to be an innovator, now I see my role more as preserving those treasures.” That is largely for the benefit of the consumers who may not be entirely au fait with the backdrop to the current sounds they dig. “I think someone like [chart topping singer] Omer Adam, who is a great success in pop right now, knows who Matti Caspi is, and knows his music, but I’m not sure his audience does,” Kutner posits.
Part of the thinking behind the forthcoming series, and all of Kutner’s long-term projects, is to provide a broader view of the artistic endeavor from these parts over the years. “In this day and age, when everything is available on the Internet, I think the job of people like myself and journalists and so on, is to provide the contexts. Matti Caspi, for example, can’t get on the stage and proclaim he is one of the geniuses of Israeli music. In 1973, together with Shlomo Gronich, he made one of the great albums of Israeli music [Behind the Sounds]. The audience doesn’t know about that. Matti can’t give them the context. That’s my job.”
It’s a job Kutner has been doing well for many a year now. Long may it continue.
For tickets and more information: *9066 and www.hatarbut.co.il