Son Sings His Father’s Classic

By COLlive reporter

Tali Yess has studied music at Concordia University and marketing at Cornell University. He is married, is blessed with children, and lives in Monsey where runs his label, N.Y. Productions.

But he still very much lives with the memories of his late father, Moshe Yess of blessed memory. Until his passing in 5771, Moshe Yess was known as a trailblazer of Jewish music and one of the most beloved performers and musicians of his time.

His son Tali now runs his fan page on Facebook and sings many of the songs his father composed over his long career. Tali has recently released his own version of his father’s hit song “My Zaidy,” almost four decades after it was composed.

“I find its content to be more and more relevant as the generations go by,” he wrote to COLlive.com. “This was an opportunity for me to breathe a breath of new life into a song that was released before I was born.”

AUDIO: Download here

On Wednesday night, Tali Yess wrote his to his friends that the 4th of Shvat is the yartzeit of his father’s passing at the age of 65. “Please do a Mitzvah or learn a bit of Torah in his memory,” he asked. “His Jewish name was Moshe Aharon ben Ze’ev.”

Avraham Rosenblum, veteran Jewish rock singer and leader of the Original Diaspora Yeshiva Band, responded: “Your father was the most professional entertainer in Jewish Message music. I was awed by Megama’s performances. He had a zany sense of humor too, which I found out about when we went drinking at BB King’s after one of the HASC shows he and I did together. May Moshe Aharon ben Ze’ev’s neshama have an Aliyah.”

While R’ Mendy Chanin, a resident from Crown Heights, calls Yess a special man. “We had a really great time when he came to camp in Gan Menachem and rocked the house, and in camp in Tannersville when he came for a Shabbaton,” he recalled.

Dovid YB said he remembers that performance as well. “He was in rare form that night. Played many requests. But I remember he wouldn’t play “there ain’t no bishul in a kli shlishi” because he has come to learn that there are situations where there could be bishul in a kli shlishi.”

Singer Sholom Jacobs paid tribute to Yess by calling him “a special man with a special soul.” He went on to write that Yess was an “incredible musician that dedicated his life to bringing Jews closer. (I have) fond memories of his visits to Scotland and the UK tour (which) I arranged for him when I was only 16 years old.”

Shifra Zipp Klein, founder of the Sugar Chai bakery service in Los Angeles, wrote: Your father’s music brought our family back to yiddishkeit. May his neshama have an Aliya.”

VIDEO: “Zaidy” by Moshe Yess