A Legendary Voice is Silenced

February 14, 2006 - 10:18 AM by Allison

You didn’t have to hear the news to know that Shoshana Damari, Israel’s veteran songstress died last night at the age of 83.

Everyone knew she was in the hospital, and when you woke up to hear her songs being played on every radio station, it was pretty obvious.

It’s hard to know who to compare her to, legendwise. Ella Fitzgerald? Frank Sinatra in the sense that she was the voice of a generation.

But neither of these quite fit. She was even more of a national figure in terms of her place in history. I suppose it’s something like France losing Edith Piaf.

As long as there’s been a State of Israel, there’s been Shoshana Damari — her first album was released in 1948, and her songs are considered the soundtrack to the War of Independence.

A beautiful Yemenite woman, she was also one of the first Israelis of African/Asian extraction in the public eye.

Her most famous song was about a flower, “Calaniot” (Anemones) It’s rather romantically appropriate that she passed away when they were in bloom.

Damari recently staged something of a comeback, when one of the most talented and popular young musicians in Israel, Idan Raichel, decided to feature her on the album he released last year. If you want to hear her last hit song and understand what was strong and unique and magical about her voice, even in her 80′s, go here, click on the second album “Out of the Depths” and listen to the first and last tracks, titled “Leaf Carried By the Wind” and “Light His Eyes.”

I was lucky enough to be at the first concert when Raichel took this album on what has turned into a worldwide incredibly popular, tour. It was amazing to see Raichel and Damari on stage together, entranced by one another — Raichel not quite believing that he was actually making music with this national legend, and Damari not quite believing that at the age of 82 she was on stage and performing songs from a hit album with this dreadlocked young man.

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