ThatвЂ™s something that happens to all great artists, and itвЂ™s fine Hanoch himself is aware of it and writes about it. His writing has long since lost its marvelous momentum and thrust. Nor are the older HanochвЂ™s limitations confined to voice and singing. The fact that there are quite a few вЂњYes, butвЂќ moments here means that this is an album whose songs are better than their performance. Leaf in the wind Shalom Hanoch's new album 'The Occurence and the Mistake.' The song itself is lovely, but the singing doesnвЂ™t allow it to stay lovely. But a moment later, in the chorus, heвЂ™s straining again, and the listener strains with him and regrets it. This is exactly how a singer whoвЂ™s approaching 70 should sound.

HeвЂ™s living the song but also observing it from afar. Now comes the reflective quiet of вЂњAlways Now.вЂќ HanochвЂ™s entry is simultaneously very authoritative and very delicate. At its conclusion, the listener breathes a sigh of relief. The track that best reflects both the potential and the missed opportunity in vocal terms is вЂњAlways Now.вЂќ The track before it, вЂњCanвЂ™t Get Enough of Me,вЂќ a rock song with pretensions to naughtiness, is the albumвЂ™s vocal nadir, the hardest song to listen to. Most of the time, on the new album, the negative aspect outweighs the positive in HanochвЂ™s singing. Hanoch sings far less badly than he did in that performance three years ago, but he doesnвЂ™t succeed in reaching the critical bar at which the positive value of the unavoidable rust that coats the voice of a great but aging artist balances the negative value. Naturally, the songs themselves are very important, but the right vocal cut seemed to be a necessary condition for the albumвЂ™s success.ДЄfter listening to the album, I canвЂ™t report an impressive achievement in this regard. In short, my expectation was that Hanoch and his longtime producers, Louis Lahav and Moshe Levy, would tailor the songs and the album to HanochвЂ™s current voice and capabilities. Moreover, HanochвЂ™s new songs were undoubtedly written with an awareness of the limitations of his aging voice (heвЂ™s 68), in contrast to the now-classic songs that were written for a young man with fresh cords and smoking mileage that, while long, was not yet endless. An album is far more amenable to control: you can record and re-record until you get a result that satisfies you. Still, another part of me fully вЂ“ and hopefully вЂ“ acknowledged that an album is a very different thing from a live show. Given my still-lingering memory of that performance, I have to admit that I listened to HanochвЂ™s new album, вЂњThe Occurrence and the MistakeвЂќ with high, perhaps exaggerated sensitivity to the vocal aspect. As those songs are engraved on my heart, it was a very sad event for me, and I decided that it would be best simply to avoid HanochвЂ™s shows in the future. Whatever the style was, he absolutely butchered his marvelous songs, sending them crashing down from sublime melodic heights to second-rate, sodden depths. I say вЂњperformedвЂќ rather than вЂњsang,вЂќ because he didnвЂ™t sing. He performed many of the great songs that had won him his status. Befitting his lofty status, Hanoch came on late at night, the last item of the festival. I reached that decision after seeing him perform at an open-air festival near Binyamina. Three years ago, I decided to keep my distance from concerts of Shalom Hanoch, the iconic singer-songwriter, and especially from mass shows in which he sings with his band.

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