Danny Litani said goodbye to the stage with a heartfelt performance

After about 55 years of activity, Danny Litani has announced that he is about to undergo life-changing surgery, which could cause him to stop performing.

Just a moment ago, hundreds of Israelis came to say goodbye to the veteran creator, in a show that did not need a sense of hearing to enjoy, and could be heard through the heart.

Living Room Fellow

21/01/2022

Friday, 21 January 2022, 06:45 Updated: 07:26

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Danny Litani's dream is familiar to every Israeli from a certain age. He is still there, the same old dream, hiding like an ancient sin behind eyes that remain as dreamy as ever. The dream of the gala concert at Madison Square Garden in New York. And in his dream, 20,000 people came to hear him, and all the box offices were closed because the tickets were sold out a few months in advance. George Harrison pushes Elvis aside and goes up to present the Schlager from the Middle East in an angry British accent: "Danny Laitna". The boy from Neve Sha'anan in Haifa takes the stage with Bob Dylan and Leon Russell, and with the backing band Pink Floyd. The crowd goes crazy. Women pass out in the hall. The police enter the picture. Then Danny goes to the microphone and starts singing. In the back he hears Bob Dylan whisper to the pianist: "Hey Leon, we should remember this guy, this Israeli kid is going to be someone someday."

In an ideal world, this is what Danny Litani's farewell performance would look like. 20,000 people who come to applaud him for the last time, and join him in singing "Crisis of Trust", "Until the End of Summer", "Days of Messiah" and the other big hits. The Israeli reality is a little different. We are good at mourning the dead and remembering nostalgia for better days. We are less good at celebrating life and cheering for the greats who hang out here among us. Last night, at an event in a wild blues rhythm, several hundred Israelis gathered to say "thank you" in real time. It was just as exciting as it sounded.

At the Enav Center in Tel Aviv it is impossible to cram 20,000 fans, barely 350, but the intensity of love that was yesterday towards the artist on stage could have filled Seventh Avenue in Manhattan.

All tickets were sold out in advance and two more shows opened to meet demand.

They didn't even have to unite Pink Floyd for the event.

In fact, this grape center is a somewhat ironic location for a "farewell to the stage," given the fact that there is no real stage in the modest hall at all.

The audience envelops the singer in a kind of womb armed with low chairs, standing and looking at them from below, from the floor of the hall, modestly.

With all due respect to that dream of performing in New York, how many artists get such an evening where his loyal audience comes to say goodbye to him even though a deadly plague infects tens of thousands of people every day?

It turns out that that dream was not so far from reality.

Even without Dylan by his side, even without Jonathan Geffen, this Israeli boy has really grown to be someone, anyway.

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The crowd took the cynicism out of him.

Danny Litani (Photo: Reuven Castro)

For her sake, the woman about whom Danny Litani wrote "Crisis of Trust," probably the hit most associated with him, already has great-grandchildren.

This is an important reminder that time does not stop, not even for the muses of the most beautiful love songs.

This is an important perspective, certainly when it comes to the performance of Danny Litani, who 30 years ago sang that "tonight is young - you are no longer".

He has been on stage for 55 years. The hair changed color, the sunglasses were replaced with a visor cap, but the sound is the same sound and the passion for the stage is the same passion. How many of us get to do what we love for 55 years? How many of us can even imagine doing the thing we loved doing most as high school boys even more than a decade after retirement age? The parting from the stage that was forced on Litany for medical reasons could have been a sad event, but it was precisely the man who made blues music accessible to the masses who refused to succumb to the melancholy and sadness that characterize artists in these situations. It was an opportunity for thanksgiving on his part, an opportunity to remove the remnants of cynicism and contain the love of the audience. Last night at the center of Enav did not stand a 78-year-old man singing a young man's songs, but a proud artist, standing in front of a loyal fan base, giving his all, and especially his whole voice.

"I'm a cynical person. I'm really not proud of that," he says as he takes the stage, referring to the elephant in the room, "after so many years you managed with your love to break my cynicism. I'm as excited as I was for years and I thank you. Lots of love "You sent it to me. I'll send it back to you. I'm crying for a moment. It's not happening to me. I'm devastated by it."

Not hearing, nor politically correct.

Danny Litani (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Someone in the audience yells at him in English: "Young forever."

It's not clear if he's trying to flatter the older man on stage or if he's required him to perform Dylan's old song.

Litani's eyes are half open, guessing from the movement of the stars that something is happening in the audience.

This is his chance to break the ice and mention he does not hear.

Deaf.

Sorry with the politically correct loyalists but Litani is not hard of hearing but deaf, as he sang about himself in "Attention Deficit Disorder" in 2012.

In general, Litani does not come from the PC generation. When he arrives to perform Shalom Hanoch's "I Caught a Head on the Bar" he tells that the song is based on a true story in which the late Zvi Shissel spent time with a "bomb" in a hotel and discovered that she is transgender, or as Shalitani innocently called her: "Shemale". He went on to explain how Shissel was terribly ashamed and disappeared for several months, as it was a time when "gay" was a word that could only be said in a whisper. Then Litani recalls that even today the situation is no better, and in the pride parades in Jerusalem "penguins" come and try to hurt the marchers, and it even ends in stabbings sometimes, which is really not funny. This confused sequence of thoughts was unplanned, and mostly highlighted how excited Litany was about the special class. Later, when he performed the song he performed hundreds of times, he became confused with words and lost concentration, until he finally gave up and simply left the singing roles to the audience. There was something charming about it. Even after being more horny on stage,There was still a little excitement in the old troubadour from the crowd.

Several hundred people in the center of Tel Aviv were no less excited than Madison Square Garden. Danny Litani with Assaf Barak and Alon Radei (Photo: Reuven Castro)

He performed two Dylan songs, performed The Letter, a cover of Joe Cocker's cover (which he warmed up in a 2008 performance at the Amphitheater in Maayan Harod) and Leon Russell (with whom he will probably no longer perform, mainly because he is dead), performed songs Poets and a few other blues-style covers ("A cover is a song by someone else that I take, then destroy it," he said). In the end, it was possible to name all the great hits that remained outside the stylist, from the songs from "Life According to Agfa", through masterful songs such as "After all, you are allowed", "It was a story of winter", "Strawberry Alley", and "Achziv 76" - And to the ingenious hymns from "Letters to the System", the favorite Hebrew album of the Knesset. But it really did not change anything. Minimalist, Litany stood next to Assaf Barak (guitars) and Alon Radei (keyboards) and that's fine.It was not a performance heard in the ears. We were all deaf for one evening, and listened to songs through the heart. It is not inconceivable that Litani could have read his grocery shopping list, and it was still an equally exciting performance.

"And he's about to finish," Litani quoted Shlomo Artzi, but instead of flowing into his rendition of "Suddenly When You Didn't Come," he actually performed an ultra-bluesy version of "Until the End of Summer."

It may be that by the summer, and certainly by the end, we will know if the ruler surgery he is about to undergo will really keep him away from the stages forever.

Hopefully not.

The feeling in the air was not of a last appearance, but of the beginning of a miracle.

The victory of the spirit over the body.

Will he return to the stages?

By the end of the summer we will find the answer.

Danny Litani says goodbye to the audience (Photo: Reuven Castro)

It was a conference of happy people. There is such an animal. "How Good I Have in My Life," Litani sang in "Days of the Messiah," arguably his most optimistic song, which was moved in an exciting way to signify the show. The crowd demanded more. Time passed too fast, probably knowing that this might be the last time. The night was young, and Litany looked suddenly too. The white hair turned into a mane of black curls, a thick beard covering his face. Wants to look like Bob Dylan, but is as penetrating in his words as Jacques Berl, with a depth of Tom Jones and a hippie look of Woodstock.

The audience wanted more from him.

Litany stood for long minutes and drew the love of the masses.

A tear welled up in the sides of his eyes.

How much he would like to be behind sunglasses, like he used to.

Maybe he wanted to keep going.

Actually, for sure.

Of all the people in the hall, he was the last to want the night to end.

But then he blurted out, "I just can no longer," and against the background of the huge applause he simply escorted himself out of the hall.

There was no doubt for a moment that there would be no Encore.

The matter is over quickly.

It was a winter story.

no more.

And here comes a dream from another story.

A sinless dream.

No more Madison Square Garden, but one more time, in little Israel, with things that come from the heart, like a child who loves.

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