Reboot Ideas: Ancient Psalms meet Contemporary Folk

Grammy-nominated producer and writer, Nathan Salsburg, has dedicated his life to using music to tell the stories of our lives. As both the curator of the renown Alan Lomax Archive now housed at the Library of Congress, and a musician whose own works build on American traditions, Salsburg is constantly innovating, inspired by the voices that came before. In 2021, Salsburg dove into his Jewish inherited sounds, releasing a record of psalms and Jewish poetry that he studied, recontextualized and produced with fellow folk musicians for the album, Psalms.Salsburg joined Reboot CEO David Katznelson, a Grammy-nominated producer in his own right, for a conversation digging into Salsburg’s latest album, Psalms. They discussed the process, his impetus and the impact on him personally of deeply investigating his Judaism now. It was a musical and thoughtful conversation about the value of listening to the sounds of our past to imagine our future. Taped on November 16, 2021 – watch here.

Presenters

Nathan Salsburg is a guitarist, composer, writer, and the curator of the Lomax Digital Archive, the online repository of the seven decades of documentary work compiled by renowned folklorist Alan Lomax. His most recent album is “Psalms” (August 2021), a collection of new musical arrangements of pieces from the Book of Tehillim. He lives in Kentucky with his wife, singer-songwriter Joan Shelley, and their dog, cat, chickens, goats, and infant human daughter.

David Katznelson is the CEO of Reboot. A Grammy nominated music producer, in his 30+ years in the music industry, he worked in high school for Bill Graham Presents, as a college radio DJ, as vice president of A&R at Warner Bros., and as the head of the independent label group, The Birdman Recording Group, Inc. Katznelson served as the chair of Reboot’s board of directors since 2012 and he is also one of the first members of the Reboot network, and has been an active member of the community from Reboot’s inception. He is a co-founder of two of Reboot’s most successful initiatives – The Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation and the Dawn Festival, a Shavuot celebration in San Francisco.