Young Jewish music label gets Grammy nomination: studio city firm tries to reach wider audience.

At first glance, combining the traditional music of Eastern European Jewish shtetls with the lyrics of a left-leaning Dust Bowl refugee living near Coney Island may not sound like a good match.

The folks at The Recording Academy thought differently.

When Grammy Award nominations were announced last month, included in the Best Contemporary World Music Album category was "Wonder Wheel" by The Klezmatics and distributed by the Jewish Music Group based in Studio City.

While the music label's business plan relies heavily on selling to a Jewish audience, its president David McLees is confident of reaching a broader listenership.

The Grammy nomination is evidence of that, McLees said.

"We are taking a leap that there is more of a mainstream acceptance of Jewish music and music artists so it can cross over out if its niche," McLees said.

Founded 18 months ago by McLees and Richard Foos, both music industry veterans who worked together at Rhino Records and the Warner Music Group, the Jewish Music Group has released 30 albums and has eight acts actively recording new material.

The Klezmatics are among those acts, as are Chutzpah, a four-man Hip Hop supergroup who had copies of its album donated to U.S. military serving in Iraq.

"It's fun music that will make you smile," McLees said.

The relative success of a Hanukkah music release while serving as an executive at Rhino Records opened McLees's eyes that Jewish music could expand its boundaries.

McLees wanted to do more Jewish-related releases at Rhino but the company's business model was geared toward acts that could ship 500,000 to 1 million units and not the modest 30,000 units sold of the Hanukkah release.

Cut loose from Warner in 2004 in a layoff, McLees teamed up with Foos in 2005 to found the Jewish Music Group. Foo's connections give the label distribution into chain music and bookstores.

Two salespeople, meanwhile, get the catalogue into 500 Judaica bookstores across the country.

"We are self-distributed in the Jewish world," McLees said. "We sell directly to temples, synagogues and Jewish non profits and other places where you would expect our customer base to be directly found."

Some habits, however, die hard in the music industry.

Taking a page from the playbook that made Rhino a success--licensing out-of-print material or that had never been released other than on vinyl--JMG began to license for re-issues ("Don Rickles Speaks!"), best-of collections (The Debbie Freedman Anthology") and compilations.

But it is with the original acts that JMG is making its stand to introduce traditional Jewish music to non-Jewish audiences and to follow in the tracks of Matisyahu, the Hasidic reggae artist who last spring hit number 7 on the Billboard U.S. Modern Rock chart with "King Without a Crown."

The Grammy nomination for The Klezmatics is a start.

For their first English-language album, the five-member band performed the lyrics of Woody Guthrie to what McLees describes as a "uniquely Jewish art form."

Over 11 songs, the words of an icon of American folk music meet the music of a centuries-old folk music mixed with elements of jazz. Having other musicians use Guthries's lyrics proved successful in 1998 and again in 2000 by Americana rockers Wilco and Brit folkie Billy Bragg and their highly acclaimed "Mermaid Avenue" discs both of which earned their own Grammy nominations.

Rather than tell tales of his native Oklahoma or the down-and-out uprooted by the dust storms and the Depression, the lyrics reflect Guthrie's life in Brooklyn and contain Jewish themes.

"He experienced a big Jewish population in Coney Island and Brooklyn in the Forties and Fifties," McLees said.

Staff Reporter Mark R. Madler can be reached at [phone] or at [e-mail].