Hear the Basque original lullaby for Naomi Shemer's Jerusalem of Gold
It's frontpage news in Israel, apparently. The song Jerusalem of Gold (Yerushalyim shel Zahav) was not an original creation of its composer, Naomi Shemer, but a copy of a Basque lullaby...
Haaretz has the story "quite right,": mentioning the Basque singer who was heard by Shemer (or by Shemer's friends): Paco Ibañez. But Haaretz fails translating the lullaby's title: it's not Joseph's Hair! The lullaby is Pello Joxepe, a male name, translatable like Peter Joseph. Perhaps someone took Basque Pello, and transformed it into Spanish Pelo (hair)?
You may hear Ibañez singing that at this record Real Audio will let you hear some seconds there...
Pello Joxepe is a well known song among Basques, but rather than in that soft melody used by Ibañez and copied by Shemer, in a rather different more joyful melody. The copied melody, in turn, seems to be a popular melody adapted to many songs... Other Basque artists have recorded it as Mikel Laboa singing "Ihes ederra" (Laboa used the traditional melody to put music to a writer's poem) or the group Hiru Truku singing "Bart hamarretan" (a traditional song).
As for reactions to the copying act... Nobody's outraged here at the Basque Country. We are such a little nation... we feel proud anytime someone notices us for something good (a nice tune, for instance).
Here someone put the mp3 file (3 Mb) with Paco Ibañez singing Pello Joxepe, accompanied by Imanol Lartzabal.