Noa's Museum Blog

25 December 1992

Article about Noa at Jerusalem Post (Israel)

cHOOSY US PRODUCER PICKS ACHINOAM NINI FOR A SHOT AT STARDOM
Jerusalem Post - Jerusalem
Author: Tirzah Agassi
Date: Dec 25, 1992
Abstract (Document Summary)
Singer/songwriter Achinoam Nini is about to make her American debut album with the financial and musical backing of Grammy Award-winning jazz guitarist Pat Metheny. She plans to include a Hebrew song and a tune from a book of traditional Yemenite ceremonial songs.

"On the record I'll sing primarily in English, but there will be a Hebrew song and there will be Hebrew laced throughout the songs. Also, I'm taking one Yemenite tune from the Diwan {book of traditional Yemenite ceremonial songs} that I know from childhood. I've written English lyrics, but I'm doing my best to sing it in a Yemenite style."
When he started working with [Nini], [Gil Dor] decided to introduce her to Metheny. The meeting finally occurred a year ago during one of Nini's trips to the US to see her family

26 December 1991

Article about Noa at Jerusalem Post (Israel)

Jerusalem Post - Jerusalem Author: Aryeh Dean Cohen
Date: Dec 26, 1991 Abstract (Document Summary)

The shows and album therefore mix hot sets where [Gil Dor, Nini]'s voice and Dor's guitar get to do their flying trapeze acts, alongside quiet numbers like She Went to the River, a somber, Judy Collins-style ballad written by Nini. And of course there is the haunting Uri based on a poem by Israeli poet Rahel, about a barren young woman's prayer for a son.

Nini read the poem in a book of Rahel's verse, given to her by [Asher]. "It's beautiful, it's all breathtaking, but there's such a deep darkness, a sadness that come from her life that was so difficult. I am a person of light, a positive, optimistic person, so I was looking for hope in her poems, and I found some hope in this one. There is an immense amount of beauty in its sadness, and finding beauty in sadness is rare. "And there is simplicity, and the beautiful last line where she says: OK, I'll pray like Rahel and wait like Hanna, but I will wait. Maybe I'll have him in another life, maybe I'll have him in the form of a poem that I've written. And I love that. So I wrote music to it, and Gil loved it, and it became popular."

Nini is still largely influenced by [Paul Simon], who she says "is like God." She vows to meet him "and he'll listen to my music, too, by hook or by crook." Other Nini favorites are Sting and [Joni Mitchell]. "For me, she's a real symbol, a person who developed from real straight folk music to jazz which is undoubtedly her sound, which is what I'm striving for - to try to combine my ethnic side, my American side, and my Israeli side into something which is just me."