A few months later, Uncle Moishy Volume 2 came out, and it goes without saying that my prediction had come true

When producing an album, you always hope the songs you pick will be winners. Sometimes you call it right, and sometimes it’s the opposite. Abie Rotenberg told me that as soon as he finished composing “Hamalach Hagoel,” he knew it was special. When MBD and Mona composed “Moshiach,” they both knew they had a super hit on their hands. Rabbis Baruch Chait and Eli Teitelbaum composed “Min Hamaitzar” while they were on a plane together, and while Reb Eli a”h thought it would “take off,” Reb Baruch wasn’t sure. (It did.) I wonder if Joey Newcomb knew the true value of “Thank You, Hashem” when it came out, or if Benny Friedman had a good feeling about “Yesh Tikvah.”

I also had one of those experiences, when I just knew I’d discovered a winner. It was the early ’80s, and I happened to be having an “industry” conversation with the owner of an electronic store that sold Jewish records. When a woman who was searching through the record rack overheard me talking about my line of work, she introduced herself to me and asked me if I ever heard of Canadian children’s entertainers Sharon, Lois & Bram, who had put out several non-Jewish kids’ records, including one called Smorgasbord. She said she was from Toronto, and there, they were a well-known group. She assured me they had some great children’s songs on their records and urged me to listen to them. I made a mental note, and about a month later, when I happened to have been in a mall in Toronto, in the window of a record store called Sam Goody, there was a record called — you guessed it — Smorgasbord. I decided to invest $5.99 (Canadian) and purchase it.

As soon as I got back to New York, I put the LP in my record player (yes, that’s the thing with a needle that would rotate around a vinyl disc and make music) and spent a few seconds listening to each song. Some of them were old-time kiddie songs, others were jingles I didn’t connect with, to say the least, and I probably would have thrown the record out, but then, right between “Little Sally Saucer” and “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” there was a song called “Hey Dum Diddle Dee Dum.” As soon as I started listening, I was mesmerized. I listened to the song at least 30 times that day. I had never been attached to a song before, but I had absolutely no doubt that this was going to be an unbelievable Uncle Moishy hit.  A few months later, Uncle Moishy Volume 2 came out, and it goes without saying that my prediction had come true.