Music

Rozo D'Shabbos, The Sway Machinery
Live at Sweetwater Music Hall, 2019

The musical story of Jeremiah Lockwood is almost hard to believe. His early musical development was guided by his grandfather, a Jewish cantor, and Carolina Slim, a well-known blues guitarist. All those influences crystallize into something unified. -- Joe Tangari, Pitchfork

Jeremiah Lockwood … grew up with two disparate musical mentors. As a boy, Lockwood sang in the choir of his grandfather, Jacob Konigsberg, a renowned cantor who led the High Holidays services at the Loop Synagogue, in Chicago, for several decades. When he was fourteen, Lockwood began a lifelong apprenticeship with the legendary Piedmont blues master guitarist Carolina Slim, which mainly consisted of busking alongside the impeccably dressed Slim in Manhattan subway stations. -- The New Yorker

The Sway Machinery

The Sway Machinery

‟This unclassifiable, uplifting band is led by the singer and guitarist Jeremiah Lockwood, the grandson of the renowned cantor Jacob Konigsberg, whose choir Lockwood once sang in. Lockwood's diverse musical influences also include a nearly two-decade apprenticeship in the New York subways with the legendary Piedmont blues master Carolina Slim and a collaboration with several prominent Malian musicians which took place on a long visit there a few years ago.” --The New Yorker

Gordon Lockwood

Gordon Lockwood

Jeremiah Lockwood and Ricky Gordon have been making music together for over two decades, originally as disciples of Piedmont Blues legend Carolina Slim. For their first post-pandemic live shows they have begun a new duo to share the sonic pleasures stored up over a tumultuous year of longing. Expect old time blues, new-time rhythms, and ballads about all the things we want to do with you.

Golden Ages

Golden Ages

Produced by Dr. Jeremiah Lockwood, Golden Ages is a window into a remarkable music scene in today's Brooklyn that is bubbling with life, hidden away from view of most music lovers. It is located in communities in Williamsburg and Borough Park, and its key players are young Chassidic singers. In the ultra-Orthodox community, older forms of Jewish music have largely been displaced by pop-music that sounds a lot like what you would hear on the mainstream radio, but with pious lyrics in Yiddish or prayer book Hebrew. A small but vibrant group of young singers have taken up the style of pre-World War Two cantorial music as their art form of choice, performing tracks recorded a century ago. This album documents the raw and vital sounds of communication across the divide of time.

Solo

Solo

Jeremiah Lockwood has made several solo albums over the years that showcase his fingerpicking guitar style, his connection to historic genres of blues and Jewish music, and collaborations with important artists.

The Book of J

The Book of J

Old worlds collide in Book of J, as musicians Jewlia Eisenberg (Charming Hostess) and Jeremiah Lockwood (The Sway Machinery) take inspiration from the intersection of the sacred and the radical to create hit songs from out of the depths of American psalmody, Yiddish folklore, and international Jewish liturgical traditions.

Composer for film and video

Composer for film and video

In addition to his work as a band leader, singer and guitarist, Jeremiah Lockwood has scored numerous feature films, documentaries, video shorts and plays. His works include award winning collaborations with Paul Andrejco’s Puppet Heap production company. Jeremiah was a 2011 Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra. For the BPO he composed a piece for string quartet, drums and electronics titled As Long as the Breath Rattles My Bones (a tribute to blues musician Carolina Slim), and Rooms, a piece for orchestra. Jeremiah’s songs have been featured in the hit TV programs Transparent and Weeds, and in the films Big Bad Love, and Death in Love.

The Fraternal Order of the Society Blues

The Fraternal Order of the Society Blues

When Carolina Slim left this mortal coil on February 16, 2014, we decided to keep his music going. The Fraternal Order of the Society Blues debuted on WKCR radio in New York City a few days after the funeral. A trio of three of his most prominent students, The Fraternal Order of the Society Blues extends the music of Carolina Slim into the future.

Discography

Discography