He discovered me and launched my music career — but now I’m ready to move on

Shimon: I got you to where you are. How can you ditch me now?

Yonah: I’m grateful for what you did, but does that mean I’m stuck for life?

Shimon

I’ve always been fascinated by the music field. I was the kid who stood open-mouthed watching the band at weddings and schemed to get autographs from famous singers. (It helped that my uncle is a well-known producer, who indulged my passion with various signed scraps of paper that I carefully pasted into a notebook).

I don’t sing particularly well, and I had no patience to learn an instrument, but I do have an ear for music and an eye for trends, and everyone in yeshivah knew that my iPod was loaded with the latest songs from all the popular Jewish singers.

So it was only natural that when the time came for me to start working, I wanted to go into music production. Hey, I had my uncle to show me the ropes, and I’d been waiting for years for the chance to work with the greats of Jewish music and make that music happen.

Uncle Pini was happy to help. He even sent me my first singer to work with, a young hopeful with a nice voice. Nothing major, but he was sweet. We began working on creating a brand for him, putting out a single, and so on.

It was a start, but I needed more. Between you and me, this guy — Yossi Baumstein, his name was — was nice and all, but he wasn’t star material. I was looking to take on guys with potential for more, with real untapped talent, to really launch someone’s career — and with that, I’d secure my spot in the field as well.

IT

was at my wife’s first cousin’s wedding that I struck pay dirt.

I hadn’t particularly wanted to attend this simchah, if we’re being honest. I had work to catch up on and I was tired and the wedding was in another city. But Dina insisted we both had to go; she was super close with her cousin Rikki, they were a similar age, and Rikki had been in shidduchim for years and years. In general, Dina’s family were a close-knit bunch; her grandmother would definitely notice if I didn’t show up.

When we arrived at the hall, I couldn’t shake the vague sense of annoyance that I’d lost an evening. I had work to do, and a singer I’d been trying to reach for a while had finally gotten back to me. We’d almost set up a meeting for that evening when my wife had reminded me about the wedding. Now he’d probably go AWOL again and there went my chance to work with him.

With the mood I was in, it took a few minutes for me to notice the music. At some point, the sound penetrated, and I turned to look at the singer — I didn’t think I’d heard him before. He was a young man I didn’t recognize, but his voice… it was something special. Pure and true and well-controlled. And he had the crowd, there was a certain presence there.

An instinct told me this was it. The future star I was looking for.

When there was a break in the singing, I approached him and introduced myself. I explained that I worked as a producer and thought he had a lot of potential. Was he interested in branching out into the world of Jewish music in a bigger way?

He asked me a couple of questions, and gave me his number to follow up. He looked interested, but not overeager.

I took that as a good sign.