Chaim Tannenbaum - Chaim Tannenbaum

For over 50 years, when he wasn't studying mathematical logic, or teaching philosophy at Dawson College in Montreal, Chaim Tannenbaum sidelined as a musician, playing and singing with Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Loudon Wainwright III, Emmylou Harris, Richard Thompson, Penny Seeger, Martin Carthy, Neill and Calum MacColl, and Kate St. John.

He was featured on The McGarrigle Hour (1998) and Wainwright's Grammy-winning High Wide & Handsome (2009). But he never made a record of his own. Until now. His self-titled debut is a mix of originals and covers. His own songs poignantly depict homesickness, romantic loss, and the perils of rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The covers, which reflect the lifelong enthusiasms of a musical omnivore, range from Yip Harburg to Sweet Papa Stovepipe, from John Betjeman to Peg Leg Howell, and make manifest a mixed-up world muddled somewhere between spritual devotion and material dissolution - in short, the world. For the recording sessions, Chaim blended old running buddies Loudon Wainwright and David Mansfield with a distinguished group of newfound accomplices, including C.J. Camerieri, Erik Friedlander, Will Holshouser, Matt Munisteri, and Marcus Rojas.

As author/producer Joe Boyd has noted, the purchasers of this recording are in for a treat.

It's a no-nonsense, charming and compelling affair.... At 68, he's a new folk hero. **** The Guardian