Popular and Folk Music: The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Elton John, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Billy Joel, The Beach Boys, America, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, Five for Fighting, John Mayer, Chicago, Bob Dylan, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Harry Chapin, Jim Croce, John Fogerty, Kenny Loggins, Joni Mitchell, Peter Paul and Mary, Neil Diamond, Michael McDonald, various classic Motown artists.
Rabbi Larry Karol has been involved with Jewish music since his early days as a student at Temple Beth El in Kansas City, Missouri, where his parents taught Religious School, served as congregational leaders and sang in the choir. Larry began to create his own musical path as a member of the junior choir at Congregation B’nai Jehudah in Kansas City, and learned his first guitar chords for Jewish music at Reform Judaism’s Kutz Camp in Warwick, New York in 1970. Larry began to take on new roles in adding music to worship and youth group events in his senior year in high school. At the University of Illinois, Larry joined the newly-formed Hillel Choir and eventually became its guitar accompanist and co-director. He shared his ever-growing repertoire of popular music at Saturday night “Hillel After Dark” coffeehouse events. He served as an assistant songleader at Union Camp Institute in Zionsville, Indiana in the summer of 1975. In the fall of 1976, Larry entered rabbinic school at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, spending his first year at the Jerusalem campus, often singing with classmates and as a member of the school choir. While in Cincinnati for his last four years of rabbinic school, Larry continued to share his musical talents during educational programs and worship at Temple Sholom in Cincinnati, Ohio, as a summer intern at his home congregation in Kansas City, and as student rabbi at Temple B’nai Moshe in LaSalle, Illinois. Larry regularly performed at “Noah’s Place” coffeehouse at the University of Cincinnati Hillel and participated in several Cincinnati Jewish Folk Festivals as an organizer and performer. He was also a member of the HUC-JIR choir, led by Liturgical Arts Director Bonia Shur. After his ordination in 1981, Larry took the position of assistant rabbi at Temple Israel in Dayton, Ohio. While he had told the search committee that he didn’t necessarily need to be known as the “singing rabbi,” he was already taking his 12-string Ibanez guitar onto the bimah three weeks after his arrival. Dayton Jewish Center Summer Day Camp director Rhonda Marks invited Larry to share music one day in July of 1981. That was the beginning of “something new,” which led to their marriage in August of 1982.
In July, 1984, Larry and Rhonda moved to Topeka, Kansas, where Larry became rabbi at Temple Beth Sholom. He served as co-soloist and a religious school music teacher in addition to regular duties as rabbi and educational director. Their son, Adam, was born in 1986. Adam is a 2008 graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston. You can find him on myspace, too!
Larry represented the Central Conference of American Rabbis on the Reform Jewish Commission on Synagogue Music for six years and also voted on the songs that were included in “Manginot” collection of songs for Jewish education released in 1992.
Larry became the rabbi of Temple Israel in Dover, New Hampshire, in August of 2006, where he continues his involvement in music in the congregation and in the general community.
In 1999, Larry attended his first “Hava Nashira” (come, let us sing) songleaders’ workshop at Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute Camp in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. A workshop on songwriting led by Jewish performers and composers Danny Maseng and Craig Taubman inspired Larry to begin his first songwriting time in the genre of Jewish music. He composed the opening tracks of both of his CDs in the fall of 1999: “Two are Better Than One,” which begins his first CD which was produced by Rick Recht (a well-known Jewish singer/peformer/composer) and Darrell McClanahan in St. Louis in 2003; and “Let Me Sing My Way Into Your Night,” the song (which had its beginnings in October of 1977) that begins his second CD, “A New Beginning,” produced by Scott Leader (now of the group “Sababa”) and released in 2005.
Larry continues to compose new music (35 songs yet to be formally recorded as of February of 2009 – several of the new songs are available at www.oysongs.com).
ONE LIGHT ABOVE: THE LARRY KAROL SONGBOOK, FEATURING NOTATION AND ANNOTATIONS FOR THE SONGS ON LARRY'S 2 CD RECORDINGS, WAS RELEASED IN OCTOBER, 2007 - YOU CAN ARRANGE TO BUY A SONGBOOK BY CONTACTING LARRY THROUGH THIS SITE!
When interviewed by the Dover Community News in December of 2006, Larry reflected on how music is part of his rabbinate and his life: "My music is about hope, faith, community and creating understanding between various religious groups; it's what I've done in my rabbinical work. I try to use the music as a way of expressing biblical passages; I take the traditional texts and link them to various aspects of our lives. Song allows us to express emotion through the interplay of word and the music; even the chords and harmony. It's a much richer way to create a feeling of illustrating a lesson."
You can find Larry's music at cdbaby.com, oysongs.com, soundswrite.com (his 2nd CD), iTunes and many other digital download services, and at his website at larrykarol.com.
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