Jerry Silverman is an American folksinger, guitar teacher and author of music books. He has had over 200 books published, which have sold in the millions, including folk song collections, anthologies and method books for the guitar, banjo and fiddle. He has taught guitar to hundreds of students. He is currently a folk performer and lecturer at schools, universities and concert halls in the U.S. and abroad.

Silverman's best-selling books are The Folk Song Encyclopedia (a two-volume compilation of over 1,000 folk songs; words, music and guitar chords), Ballads and Songs of the Civil War (piano-vocal with guitar chords), The Guitar Player’s Guide and Almanac (a combined method book and survey of musical, technical and anecdotal information), Of Thee I Sing (patriotic American songs from the Revolutionary War to the present), The Baseball Songbook and The Undying Flame: Ballads and Songs of the Holocaust. The latter book required 9 years of research to recover many songs that were never written to paper. It contains 110 songs in 16 languages - Yiddish, German, Hebrew, Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian, Ladino, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Norwegian, Czech, Polish, Russian, Hungarian and English. The songs include the works of concentration camp prisoners and inhabitants of the ghettos of Eastern Europe as well anti-Fascist anthems inspired by the Spanish Civil War, Red Army songs and songs of Resistance fighters. Silverman's most recent book, New York Sings, was reviewed by long time friend and colleague Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

. Seeger and Silverman were both editors at Sing Out! A Folk Music Magazine in the 1960s.

Early Life

After his parents had moved to the East Bronx to escape the crowded tenements of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Jerry Silverman grew up in the neighborhood around Allerton Avenue, populated largely by eastern European Jewish immigrant families. His father, Bill (b. London, 1896) and mother Helen (b. Dubrovna, Russia, 1898) were married in the late 1920s, and Gerard “Jerry” Silverman was their only child, born 1931. Bill was a self-employed fabric supplier for Broadway theatrical productions, but was also an accomplished amateur mandolin player. Jerry began taking classical mandolin lessons at the Neighborhood Music School with teacher Matthew Kahn at age 10. Three years later, in 1945, Jerry attended Camp Wo-Chi-Ca (Workers’ Children Camp), where he was exposed to 78 rpm recordings of folk singer Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...

, blues singer Josh White

Josh White

Joshua Daniel White , better known as Josh White, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names "Pinewood Tom" and "Tippy Barton" in the 1930s....

, and The Almanac Singers. Silverman began self-teaching himself the guitar when he returned home. When he returned to Wo-Chi-Ca in subsequent years, he was introduced to the music of Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

 through camp counselor Joe Jaffe, who played banjo and guitar with Seeger occasionally. Silverman started studying with Joe at the Neighborhood Music School in 1947, and by 1948 Jaffe suggested that Silverman take over as the guitar teacher at the School when he left. Silverman was 17 years old.

In 1948, Silverman started college at City College of New York

City College of New York

The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...

. In the spring, the students started a strike to protest an anti-Semitic Spanish professor who was unfairly grading Jewish students. Silverman, along with a few other students, began leading student concerts and rallies with a union flavor. Silverman was also a regular fixture at the Washington Square folk scene. From 1948 to 1951, he regularly played Oscar Brand’s Folksong Festival on WNYC, accompanying singers of many styles and ethnicities, which contributed to his eclectic style of guitar playing.

Sing Out! Magazine

In 1951, Silverman began writing music transcriptions and arrangements for the new monthly publication ‘’Sing Out!

Sing Out!

Sing Out! is a quarterly journal of folk music and folk songs that has been published since May 1950.-Background:Sing Out! is the primary publication of the tax exempt, not-for-profit, educational corporation of the same name...

, The Folksong Magazine’’. Eventually, he took on full responsibility as the Music Editor. Fundraising for the magazine led to well-publicized Hootenanny

Hootenanny

Hootenanny is an Appalachian colloquialism that was used in early twentieth century America to refer to things whose names were forgotten or unknown. In this usage it was synonymous with thingamajig or whatchamacallit, as in "hand me that hootenanny." Hootenanny was also an old country word for...

s, which were led by Pete Seeger, and where Silverman performed regularly. Many of these “hoots” were recorded on LP, and a notable recording of "Mule-Skinner Blues" included Silverman on lead, accompanied by Seeger and Sonny Terry

Sonny Terry

Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...

 on harmonica.

Career

In 1952, Silverman was the first non-classical student to graduate from CCNY with a B.S. of Music. He then entered the graduate studies of Musicology program at New York University, also the first folk musician to enter into this program. After writing his Masters Thesis on "the blues guitar”, Macmillan

Macmillan Publishers (United States)

Macmillan Publishers USA, also known as Macmillan Publishing, is a privately held American publishing company owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than 30 others....

 published his first book “Folk Blues” in 1955.

‘’Folkways Records’’ asked Silverman to expand the 16-page instructional brochure that had been inserted into the jacket of Seeger’s ‘’Folkways’’ LP. The book, entitled “The Folksinger’s Guitar Guide” was published in 1962. It was the first guitar instruction book for folksinging guitarists and sold well over 300,000 copies. That publication led Silverman in the direction of writing a long series of other method books and folksong anthologies. He has had over 200 books published since, with the last being “New York Sings!” in March 2009.

Personal Life

He currently lives in Westchester, New York. In 1967, he married Tatiana Cherniacoski and they have 3 children: David (b.1969), Mikael (b.1978) and Antoine Silverman

Antoine Silverman

Antoine Silverman is a New York violinist, music contractor, and music arranger. The son of folk guitarist, writer and singer Jerry Silverman, Antoine began classical violin lessons at the age of three. By 5, he had discovered bluegrass as well, accompanying his father and playing fiddle contests...

(b.1972).

Partial bibliography

• Of Thee I Sing
• The Baseball Songbook
• The Undying Flame: Ballads and Songs of the Holocaust
• The Guitarists’ Guide and Almanac
• A Guitarist’s Treasury of Song
• Ballads and Songs of the Civil War
• Songs of Ireland
• Songs of England
• Songs of Scotland
• Recorder Music for Children
• Folksongs For Schools And Camps
• Kidsongs
• Kidfiddle
• Campfire Songbook
• Songs Of Mexico
• Backpacker’s Songbook
• Guitar Tabsongs: Blues
• Guitar Tabsongs: Bluegrass
• Guitar Tabsongs: Beloved Ballads
• Blues for Guitar
• Blues Harmonica
• Children’s Songs for Guitar
• Folk Harmonica
• Fingerstyle Contemporary Movie Songs
• Fingerstyle Broadway Ballads
• Fingerstyle TV Tunes for Guitar
• Best of Broadway for Guitar
• Gershwin for Guitar
• Ellington for Guitar
• Swinging Jazz for Guitar
• Jazz Classics for Guitar
• Great Standards For Guitar
• Pop Classics for Guitar
• The Ultimate Guitar Folk Song Collection
• Three Chords for Christmas Guitar
• Solo Guitar Jazz Standards
• Solo Guitar Great Standards
• Folk Blues (In German edition. Text in German; songs in English.)
• The Folk Song Encyclopedia (2 vols. -over 1000 songs)
• The Folksinger's Guitar Guide (3 vols.)
• The Yiddish Song Book
• The Immigrant Song Book
• The American History Song Book
• Ballads And Songs Of World War I
• Songs That Made History Around The World
• Songs And Stories From The American Revolution
• Songs Of The Western Frontier
• Train Songs
• Mexican Songs
• Songs Of France
• Songs Of Latin America
• Italian Songs And Arias
• Gypsy Songs of Russia and Hungary
• Songs of Germany
• How To Play The Guitar
• Note Reading and Music Theory for Guitarists
• The Chord Player’s Encyclopedia
• Traditional Black Music (13 vols.)
• Singing Our Way Out West
• Beginning The Five-String Banjo
• How to Play Country Fiddle
• How to Play Blues Guitar
• How to Play Ragtime Guitar
• The Liberated Woman’s Song Book
• String Along With Scott (String quartet arrangements of Scott Joplin rags)
• Just Listen To This Song I’m Singing (Afro-American history through song.)
• The Complete Chorales Of Johann Sebastian Bach

External links

• http://www.jerrysilverman.org
• http://www.amazon.com/Jerry-Silverman/e/B001HCU2ZI/ref=sr_tc_img_2_0?qid=1280432903&sr=1-2-ent