A girl group that got its start on a local radio show, and eventually made it big, appearing on late-night talk shows, and touring all over the world. The Spice Girls? The Supremes? Nope. Try the Barry Sisters, whose big hits were all Yiddish covers of popular English songs.
Born Clara and Merna, the two sisters were originally billed as the Bagelman Sisters, and achieved some success as Yiddish jazz singers. But when the Andrews Sisters’ “Bei Mir Bist Du Schein” became a big hit, the Bagelmans changed their last name to Barry, and joined a radio show out of New York called “Yiddish Melodies in Swing.”
As the Barry Sisters, their success grew, particularly with their hit, “Trop’ns Fin Regen Oif Mein Kop,” which you may know as “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” The sisters traveled, performed on The Ed Sullivan Show, toured in the Borscht Belt and the Soviet Union, and performed for Israeli troops during the Yom Kippur War.
You can find lots of Barry Sisters songs online, from the expected (a particularly excellent version of “Hava Nagila”) to the truly weird (“Makin Whoopee” and “Cabaret” come to mind).
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Watch “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” in Yiddish:
Watch the Barry Sisters Do “Hava Negila”:
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