oySongs.com - Jewish music

Email: Password:

Forgot Password?

ARTIST

ALBUMS

SONGS

SHEET MUSIC

PICTURES

BIO

NEWS & REVIEWS

Singer Helene Kates of The Baal Shem Tones is a rising star in American Jewish music, and anyone who has seen this tiny dynamo in performance knows why. She bonds with her audience on a soul level, drawing them in with an open heart and powerfully sweet, vibrant mezzo-soprano voice. A Baal Shem Tones concert is more than great music; for many it is a spiritual event that stays with them for years.

Helene and her husband Michael, the duo's producer and former keyboardist for The Decos, co-write most of their material, a tightly-crafted style of pop-influenced Americana which has been described as "100% American and 100% Jewish," with "a powerful spiritual punch that stands out as different from standard Jewish musical fare."

When Helene and Michael met in the 1980s, both were working musicians holding down day jobs at - oddly enough - two different printing companies. They married and eventually had their own successful printing business, but felt an emptiness in their lives where before there had been music. So they sold the business, picked up their guitars and embarked on a musical and spiritual journey to re-connect with their Jewish roots. Since then they have been invited to perform at the Hadassah National Convention in Nashville, twice at the annual Chabad women's convention in New York, Federation fundraising events and dinners around the country, several CAJE conferences, and recently the kickoff conference for NewCAJE. In 2004 they released their first album All Our Lives to wide critical acclaim, and today their songs are being sung in synagogues around the world. Their second album Untold Stories was released in September 2010.

View all albums by The Baal Shem Tones

oySongs - love Jewish music

Give e-Gift