The song “Lemaaloh” was the keystone of chassidic singer Shloime Cohen’s rise to fame, but he says that he almost didn’t sing it. “While I was working on my first album, Pinky Weber sent me a tape, with the songs ‘Atah Echad’ and’ Lemaaloh’. I wanted to pick ‘Atah Echad,’ but my producer Mona Rosenblum, listening in to the tape over the phone, wasn’t too excited about it. Then he said, ‘Be quiet, let me hear the next song.’ We heard ‘Lemaaloh’ and he said, ‘Shloime, let’s sing this on Motzaei Shabbos.’ I sang it at an event and the crowd loved it, so of course we both knew it would go on the album.” Titled? Lemaaloh, of course.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 731)