Singer-songwriter Yael Deckelbaum discusses new music, growth in self confidence - interview

Yael Deckelbaum has been getting out and about a lot. Fresh from a tour of Europe, I caught up with her in the lead-up to a couple of launch gigs (Hechal Hatarbut Pardess Hanna, December 19, 8:30 p.m., and Tel Aviv Culture Center, January 2, doors open 8:30 p.m., show starts 9:30 p.m.) to mark the release of her latest album, Surrender, her sixth to date.

In the promotional material, the 45-year-old singer-songwriter proclaims: “It feels good to be able to put something delicate out there for your kind hearts, especially during these crazy times. I hope this intimate, heartfelt music will give you a safe space to lean into.”

After giving the album several whirls, I got that mindset entirely. There is a cozy ambiance to it all and, yes, a feeling of intimacy and a one-on-one exchange.

Surrender is a delightful emotive offering on which she bares her soul and invites us along for a tender ride. Deckelbaum feels that is the requisite way to go these days, for us all.

“I get the sense that, right now, there is a lot of fragility around. It is as if the protective envelope around a lot of us is shaky and cracked. If you imagine an energetic shield, which makes you feel safe in this world, that has been severely undermined in the past year,” she says.

Wise, cautious words? Perhaps. Deckelbaum would have done well to heed her own words. Unfortunately, this past summer, she injured her back when she jumped into the sea from a cliff in Greece.

DECKELBAUM HAS spun an alluring bunch of tracks together, under the producer aegis of fellow singer-songwriter Geva Alon and with more than a little help from fellow internationally acclaimed songstress Achinoam Nini – known abroad simply as Noa – who translated Deckelbaum’s original Hebrew lyrics of “Hateshuva” into English and performs it, as “The Answer,” on the new release.

“Achinoam will guest at both gigs,” says Deckelbaum. “She is wonderful. I came across her music when I was 16. She is the best singer this country has produced. She has been a great inspiration, also because of her career abroad and her work as a peace activist. She is a rare peace voice among Israeli musicians. That is strange.”

The singer-songwriter’s earliest influences, however, came courtesy of the sounds and sentiments her late Canadian-born father, David, banjoist-vocalist founder of the iconic Jerusalem Taverners folk and country music band, imbibed in the Sixties. The influence of Deckelbaum Sr.’s compatriot musical icons Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen features prominently in his gifted daughter’s vocal and guitar-playing textures.

The video clip shot for the “Astar” cut on Surrender even has the cover of Cohen’s Greatest Hits in the background.

“That’s actually Geva’s,” Deckelbaum laughs. “We are influenced by the same musical roots. I have been with that music since I was a kid. Geva discovered his soul lies there, in American folk, and rock and roll.” Which makes for a nice nip-and-tuck artist-producer relationship, with Alon also lending his vocals here and there on the album.

Hebrew and English music 

DECKELBAUM NOT only manages to juggle her purely musical projects with her activist endeavor, she also records and performs in Hebrew and English with equal ease. Although she was born in Jerusalem, she took on much of her father’s cultural backdrop, including mother-tongue fluency in English. That makes her delivery of the English-language numbers on Surrender a natural fit. She also has crystal-clear diction.

“It feels natural to me, to the same degree, whether I am singing in English or Hebrew. It used to be more natural for me to sing in English, but I got used to singing in Hebrew, too. Each language has its own charms and benefits, in musical terms. I really love Hebrew, and I immerse myself in it.”

She says it is more a matter of in-situ logistics. “It mostly matters whom I am singing to. In Israel, I try to sing mostly in Hebrew because I feel people connect more powerfully when they hear songs in the language that is natural for them.”

Cohen’s guitar licks resonate in Deckelbaum’s songs, as do some of Mitchell’s vocal calisthenics. I was surprised to discover, a few years back, that Cohen said he sweated blood in crafting his lyrical lines. I wondered whether Deckelbaum also went through the mill.

“I am not a good poet like Leonard Cohen, so I can understand why he bled. He was really a poet. I am a songwriter,” she says. That may be so but, surely, she is committed to the words she sings. “Of course,” comes the quick response. “It is important for me to be succinct. Sometimes it’s easy and other times it takes time. It can take me years to get a text the way I want it.”

Deckelbaum wears her heart on her sleeve on Surrender, but there are some lighter moments, too, and some grittier bluesy material in there.

“Sticking with you, Superblue,” she giggles, citing the deliciously schmaltzy refrain from the latter track. The play on “Superglue” couldn’t be more obvious. “I grew up on the blues, and on folk, Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, the Sixties, Jimi Hendrix, the Mamas and the Papas, James Taylor. I think I got a good musical education. I’m glad about that.”

Her audiences here, and around the world, benefit from that parental backdrop, with Deckelbaum due to follow up her shows here with gigs in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Switzerland over the coming months.

Meanwhile, the evolutionary beat goes on. “I feel I have grown as an artist. I am more confident now. I am more focused within myself, and I think my voice is clearer now. I think the more minimalist approach to the new record reflects the fact that I have found my own place. Basically, I am a singer-songwriter telling stories.”It is a fetching tale to listen to.

For tickets and more information: yaeldeckelbaum.com/yael/live.