Wolf Krakowski
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Wolf Krakowski, Yiddish-speaking song-writer, singer, and guitarist, born in 1947 at Saalfelden Farmach, an Austrian camp for displaced persons, where his parents, who were Polish Jews who had managed to survive the Holocaust, lived for a short while after World War II. Soon afterwards they moved to Sweden, and the small town of Eskilstuna, where the family stayed until 1954 when they moved to Toronto, Canada.
As a young man Krakowski took to the road and toured for some time with blues-singer Big Joe Williams. He worked with street theatre, and as a carpenter and guitar-builder for many years. In 1997 he released the CD Transmigrations/Gilgul on his own record label, Kamea Media. On this record he presented traditional Yiddish songs in a blues–rock–reggae vein. Among the traditional songs Krakowski reshaped here were: Shabes, shabes, Friling and Zol Shoyn Kumen Di Geule, all sung by Krakowski in his first language, Yiddish. On this record, and on those that followed, he was accompanied by The Lonesome Brothers, starring multi-instrumentalist Jim Armenti.
Krakowski made a considerable impact in world music circles with this record, and the rights to it weretaken over some years later by the well-known avant-garde recording company Tsadik, led by saxophonist John Zorn, who in 2002 released Krakowski's second CD in Yiddish: Goyrl: Destiny.
Between these records, Krakowski himself also released the CD Unbounded (on Kamea Media), on which he sings some of his own songs in English.
Krakowski lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.
