The show of C. emotion

Even at 60, C. Hyman refuses to conclude a career.

She's sure she can fill Shoni, but she's happy with performances in her backyard, and she's sure an entire generation is waiting to discover her.

She explains her optimism precisely because of her difficult life: "I have something wrong with my DNA."

Personal interview with a great heroine

Living Room Fellow

04/03/2022

Friday, 04 March 2022, 00:00 Updated: 00:49

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Smadar boarded the plane to Israel alone, armed with a suitcase and a walkman.

In the headphones she heard John Denver like her choose to leave in a jet plane.

By contrast, she was a total of 12-year-old girl. At the London airport she left her entire family - a father, mother and older sister - but hoped to leave the wounds in the UK as well.

She experienced terrible violence there at school.

There were beatings, boycotts and a lot of anti-Semitism.

The year was 1973, she still had time to celebrate her bat mitzvah in the English capital, from which she mostly remembers the beatings she received from her classmates.

In Israel, she came to Kibbutz Beit Alfa, and was supported by an adoptive family, but in fact raised herself.

Absorption difficulties were severe, and she used to be alone in the hut with a piano.

Her adoptive mother cared for her.

In a letter she sent to her parents in London she wrote: "She is not a pigeon among pigeons and she is not a crow among crows."

In response, her parents sent her a package from London with a small harmonica and a note in her father's special handwriting: "Siskle,

After such a long career, that at its peak she was chosen Singer of the Year, and with one rare anthem still played on the radio - C. Hyman celebrates 60 away from the mainstream spotlight.

This is not fake modesty, this is the situation of Israeli rock.

To her credit, she refuses to take risks or present herself as a victim.

She does not wrap reality in sugar, but takes things in proportion.

The dream of filling Caesarea is still lamenting in her heart, but she is currently content with trying to promote her next show at a pub in Hod Hasharon that can accommodate 50 people.

"I'm not a whiner," she says in an interview with Walla!

Culture, "During the Corona period they kept inviting me to TV shows, and I said 'no'. I was called to whine, but what should I whine about? I grew and flourished during the Corona period. I finished working on my tenth album and performed non-stop in the backyard. A journalist called me, He told me that he was doing an article for the weekend news with Dana Weiss and that Miri Aloni, Dafna Armoni and I would participate in it. I asked what the article was about, and he said: 'About the difficulty.' I do not want bigger things to happen to him. I really want to, but I believe it's starting to happen. I think it's going to happen. I'm expanding the band and I'll do electric shows too. Sure. All the best before "I'm not sad about these things. I experience happiness every day."

Not fake modesty, but a snapshot of Israeli rock.

C. Hyman in the living room of her home (Photo: Reuven Castro)

There's something here that's bigger than C. Hyman's personal story, it sucks to me as an Israeli that artists who ripped their ass off here and made hundreds of appearances, have to recalculate a track at age 60 in order to survive.

C. Hyman's American counterpart lives in some mansion in Malibu and no longer has to work at all.

"It's part of my choice to do my truth. Yes, I gave up workers' committees for a lot of money. It was a time I made a good living, much more than today. But I went through a few stages. I went back from where C. Hyman does not exist at all, to where I do acoustic performances with My songs are in small places. "

"Will not happen. By the way, do not know if Zehava came in on my slot, and I love her and so happy for her that she succeeded, but I was also offered to enter the Big Brother house that season. There were negotiations, I do not even want to say the sums. You do not Know how much they offered me. A lot of money, but I explained to them that my mother is dying and I am not built for closed places. Since she is already dead. Keep offering me all the time. I will not be there. I can not. "Judge on one of the reality shows, but even there I can not get. I really want to. I think this is my place. To be there as a judge with my agenda. But they do not see me, they can not see me."

"I'm not on Zappa's production line. I'm not saying anything that's anti. I'm still unable to get them to see me. I do not understand why, but I understand that's what's going on, they do not see me there. But yes there is strong and different movement. It's "The direction. Just before the omicron I already had a date for Barbie, but I changed again. I'm moving with things."

"Can't get them to see me. I do not understand why."

C. Hyman in the concert yard at her home (Photo: Reuven Castro)

At this stage of the conversation, Hyman happily talks about her collaboration on Lehi Lapid, on hosting the "affair" with Dana Berger, which gave birth to mutual hospitality in performances, and of course on the rare performance in front of 12,000 people sponsored by Aviv Geffen.

She brings up the names of veteran artists, ones who have worked with her in the past, ones she is friends with, who could have invited her to be a guest on their show, maybe collaborating together.

A moment later she regrets saying that, and asks me not to name the artists.

There is something naive in this thought as if it is a "friend brings friend" business.

Hyman, which is not represented by a management or public relations firm is not on this radar not because of artistic reasons, but because it does not have a manager who will make the right calls.

When I ask her why she does not pick up the phone herself to the artists and offers them to do collaborations she cringes in embarrassment.

"This is not my place," she explains, "I would be happy after the experience I had with Aviv Geffen that more people would invite me,

Aviv Geffen's name is repeated several times during the interview, and not by chance.

Last July, Geffen picked up his ninth "Rock Ball" event, as a tribute to eighties pop music.

The guest list was especially respectable, with great Israeli artists such as Ninet, Amir Dadon and Tislam also hosted the international artists Limhal (lead singer of the band Kajagogo) and Samantha Fox.

About the middle of the show, Geffen sat down behind the piano and announced a surprise that was not in the publications for the show.

"I grew up in Netanya and I would go to shows to stare at it," Geffen told the audience at the Rishon Lezion Amphitheater Park. "This is a very talented and very brave person who was ahead of his time in so many ways. "Here and perform by surprise. This is a masterpiece of the eighties in Israel, which has changed so many things here. Get the one and only, C. Hyman."

"Wow, the way is smarter than going. Maybe I need more time. Maybe in that case also what makes me still so kicking. So optimistic. So not satisfied. You're talking about my counterpart abroad, you said if I was in America I had a mansion.

I'm not sure I want to be so seven.

I have something in me that wants to stay hungry, and not hunger because I'm young.

I'm 60, even though I look fucking good for my age.

Can you write that?

Maybe I should not say that. "

" True.

I'm told that a lot too.

And that's how I came to Aviv's prom, albeit modest, but I came with a statement and with the aim of presenting myself as I am. "

"Properly. But anyone who comes to see me in small performances knows that I lift the audience at these performances as well, with endless passion. The next day I perform in the living room at Mazkeret Batya, yesterday I performed in Kiryat Ata, also there I lifted the audience, and I do not just say that. Like a plant in R. the audience was just crying. Yesterday I was in the living room in Yehud, performing at a gardener's house, not of plants, of children, that I made all the corona zoom to his garden because he asked. And now he wanted to say thank you, so he invited me to a living room performance Of his dad. What a rock show it was! Too bad we did not record this show. Everything burst out like a flame fire. Everything is fine. It will happen, I probably need some character to come into my life and take me to a different amphitheater etc, but it will happen. I will. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm reliving my life."

If she had been born in America, she would have lived on a mansion.

In the meantime, she is content with a rented apartment in Tel Aviv.

C. Hyman (Photo: Reuven Castro)

C. Hyman's living room, which also serves as a rehearsal room, is decorated with posters by Mick Jagger, Jamie Hendrix and Aretha Franklin.

One might mistakenly think that this is the studio of a young rock band.

This is a rented apartment on the quietest street, in the quietest neighborhood in Tel Aviv.

Nothing suggests that a famous singer with a glorious past lived here, who signed one of the greatest protest songs written here.

"It suits me to say 'respectful.'"

"I can not hurt the ant, just can not."

"There is always a dilemma. There is always something going on in the country. Sometimes settlements are evacuated, sometimes it is war, sometimes disengagement. There is something in the song that meets time, and melody and lyrics and power that leaves it relevant, but certain sections of the population may not connect to it. 'Listen, this is a settlement, it's not appropriate for us to hear this song here.' "Even we have a little cold to conquer."

"Why didn't I perform 'Big Hero' in the settlement? I can't hurt the ant."

C. Hyman (Photo: Reuven Castro)

It was the first song on your first album, and it's celebrating 35 years this year.

This is a great gift but also a starting threshold you set for yourself that is very difficult to deal with because he will always be identified with you.

"Thank God for that. I do samples to test the listening to the new singles on radio and Spotify, and it's just unbelievable. 'Big Hero' is played now, during this period - neither on Independence Day nor Remembrance Day - 35 times a week on all stations."

I think it has to do with the fact that anyone can put on the song some personal meaning.

Some thought the song was about the Lebanon war, some about disappointed love, some about feminism and female empowerment.

Everyone took it to their personal place.

Maybe 35 years later it's time to disperse the mystery around the song.

"The story of a great hero is that it was written on a cold night, full of rain, after a guy I had an affair with had left me very, very strong. A pilot who would come to the Penguin Club on a flight. Everyone would arrive on foot, and only he would park his helicopter in Sde Dov Mine - and we fell in love.We were together for a while, until one day he came to my apartment at John the Shoemaker 6, went up to the fifth floor, and left me a note on the door: 'I'm not a green plastic hero. I can not split my life between the army and you, and I choose In the Army. 'I crashed completely. I do not know who cried more that night, me or the rain outside.

"Then I heard a flash of IDF waves under the headline '60 seconds on fighting under the weather '.

It was said there that our forces were not fighting the heat and not fighting the mud.

Then I sat down and wrote a house ('Wars no longer happen in the winter') and a chorus ('Hey you, great hero, come and show that you can').

I recorded the song about a walkman I had, and ran in the morning to Moshe Levy who produced the album and he told me 'this song will change your life'.

"Moshe told me that this song would change my life."

C. Hyman with Moshe Levy (Photo: Yoni Tubali)

"Moshe sent me to write 'Sea Part'. I did not know what it was. I did not understand what I should write. Moshe said 'Write another passage, one that will make the last chorus explode.' For me the song was ready. He told me 'Try, go home And think about it. ' "All possible feminism. And thank God for that, because that's what actually made the song."

"The words 'I am leaving' expressed the feminine power. I used my pain and turned it around. In the song I am the one who leaves him, not he leaves me."

"You have to understand, there was no wisdom in vinyl. There were 12 songs. Song number 12 was 'Industrial World', and Moshe informed me that we needed to release it in order to put 'Big Hero'. I told him I was not removing 'Industrial World' from the album. "The song. But Moshe told me, 'These two songs are too strong together. You have enough strong songs on this album, this is a first album. You thank me for that, and he will open the second album for you after that.' He was right."

"Very! Very! Even though the second album was produced by Yizhar Ashdot and it was born out of a live performance, I completely thanked him and he knows it. And really, 'Industrial World' also survived in a very strong way."

C. Hyman's courtyard disturbed the quiet of the neighborhood during the Corona period, when it became a surprising performance venue.

Hyman has hosted singers like Miri Aloni and Dana Berger in performances in her backyard.

The audience was with masks, the production was minimal, but Hyman's passion for her music remained just as it was in the 1980s at the Penguin Club and Dan Cinema.

She recently celebrated 60, but she's running her career as if the climax is still ahead of her.

This is not innocence, this is her way of continuing to be on the wheel.

She has experience in this.

This week, Heiman released a cover of Hanan Yuval's "The Days Are Still Right," which she recorded with her musical partner in recent years and produced by Django (Amir Rossiano) ahead of an event to mark the 30th anniversary of the Association of Sexual Assault Victims Assistance Center. Habima.

Earlier this year she released the single "Einav's Eyes" in memory of Einav Rogel who was murdered by her partner.

"I always try to be open in my heart to the pain, because it also very much reflects me, and I also always look for there to be some kind of meaningful statement within the song. Not because 'this is a period of violence against women,' because it has been a period of years in this country and the world." So how do you explain that Einav Rogel

's

"It was preceded by a terrible year by Michal Sala and Shira Isakov and Diana Raz. I was invited to events related to all these women. I am always somehow invited to sing about such things, and to tell and talk. Of a woman who went through many ups and downs and overcame the crises. "

"I always recognized pain, and pain recognized me."

C. Hyman with the first single she released, "You Came to Me" (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Over the years I have experienced from your music a very clear feminine power, but maybe you have something that transmits on a different frequency to those women who have experienced violence?

"I've always recognized pain, and pain has recognized me. I can recognize a woman sitting next to me at a show who is going through something. Someone who wants to get stronger because her partner doesn't get her. Someone who gets beaten up at home. I was always there to touch on those issues. Maybe now see it more, "Because there was more time in Corona to find out who was more at heart."

"The girl who went through the upheavals and wanderings and separations I went through. A girl who probably experienced so much difficulty and sadness in her life that connects to her heart. In the days of the penguin, who were the first to discover me? Who was the little audience that came to see C. Hyman sing? The proud community. The proud community Recognized me, being someone who has such a big heart to accept the different and the other and not just accept it but on the contrary, they are my best friends.With them I could spend whole nights and have fun.They would wrap me in such love even though they called me 'the proudest straight "I have something wrong with my DNA. I'm like that."

"I survived. With heroism and nobility."

C. Hyman (Photo: Reuven Castro)

But there is also something very optimistic here.

You say 'I have something injured' and the smile does not leave your face.

"Obviously, because I survived. In heroism and nobility and that I continue the path. Yes I experienced in my distant past two violent relationships, verbal and economic. I was a girl after combat service in the army, because I was not accepted into a military band with my hoarse voice. I ran around a bit between rented apartments, guitar A bit in Dizengoff Center, selling jewelry on the streets and raising money to buy a microphone - and I met some young musician guy. We moved to Shabazi, and he was very violent verbally to me. I felt jealous and just one night when I realized the word could turn into a hit, I got up, took my things, The door and I did not look back.

"A few months later I had another guy, and he was like that too - and I immediately got up and left. And that's it, it didn't happen anymore. I experienced the feeling that violence can be a lot of things, and especially rooting fear - and with fear not living. "There have been more such things in my life, and no one has raised a hand against me, God forbid. But I do understand the feeling, yes I felt I had to run away in the middle of the night."

"I probably created for myself the powers of a girl who raised herself. Who got on a plane alone at the age of 12. It gives you some strength to get up after that at the age of 20, to close the door and say to the guy 'You will not see my shape anymore, I'm not threatened, I'm not "They shout and scare me." I raised myself. True, there were supporters and adoptive families, and there were always people there, but in time I became my own home. "

"Obviously. Independence first and foremost. Saying opinions. Going forward. Falling and getting up. Always seeing tomorrow. I've always had this something in me."

"Siskela, breathe in and out and see that everything works out."

C. Hyman with her father, the late composer Nahum (Nachcha) Heiman (Photo: Miri Nachmias)

In 1988, IDF Commander Nachman Shai shelved Heiman's song "Shoot and Cry" and banned it from broadcasting, because he claimed that the complex song - which expresses frustration at the consequences of the ongoing conflict - constitutes "harm to the IDF".

The discussion regarding the disqualification of the song reached the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the Knesset, where Yossi Sarid complained to Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin about the "expulsion of the Muses from Gaza."

Yoav Kutner, who chose to play the song on his show, was suspended from broadcasting.

34 years later, and Hyman still asks not to comment in an interview on this song.

"People who loved me decided not to love me because of this song," she explains.

"Haim Slutsky brought her to perform in Israel, while he was also my promoter. Haim asks me if I can host her for a week in Israel, take her to cafes and such. Then I find myself a week with John Baez and she has a performance at the Hall of Culture. She's shooting and crying 'and translated it for her, and then she asked me to teach her to sing the song. I asked if I could do it with her in a duet, but they preferred not to, that she sing it alone. It's a great honor. It's been John Baez's flag since the '60s, so it was natural that she would want to sing it here in the country. A song by a singer who started calling her a 'protest singer,' and I was not a protest singer. "A song in an album that had 'Like a Wild Plant'. I was a singer who sang a lot of songs and this song became my news. It was an unstoppable snowball and it affected me very hard at the time."

Six years ago, she lost her father, Israel Prize winner Nahum "Nachcha" Heiman.

In the last year, her mother Dalia also passed away.

At one point in our conversation the windows of her house are shaking, and Hyman says without a shadow of a cynicism, "This is my mother coming to visit."

She performs today mostly in small shows.

Does the marketing work itself.

Very active on social media.

Divorced again.

Mother of two musicians, Tomer Efron and Yahli Heiman Shochat, and through them the current state of music hurts - but mostly proud.

"I think it has to do with the fact that the audience is not asking for the next 'big hero.' Do not forget that in the 1980s it was a generation that came out of the squares, demonstrations, things happened. "I'm not sure the audience today wants someone to direct something to them that will excite them, but if you're a stimulating person you will remain a stimulating person."

"I looked at Miri Aloni in a recent article about her. I was very hurt by her because I am her friend and I love her and I have hosted her many times in shows. I have managers. It scares me that there might not be much work. What will happen if I do not feel well. God forbid something will happen to me. The 'being' scares me. Because right now everything is 100% and everything beyond is a bonus. .

"Hope I have love."

C. Hyman (Photo: Reuven Castro)

While most artists turn to summaries at age 60 and do not stop looking ahead, it is refreshing.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

"First of all, I very much hope that I will have love. That I will have true love. Love that can support who I really am, and not that I will have to fold my petals to live in a relationship. I need to find the right man. That is my wish."

"It's not even the first thing. I would like to be represented. Someone who recognizes my potential as an actress. To do TV, theater, musicals. What a 'Mama Mia'. My dream."

C. Hyman, upcoming performances

12.3, with Lehi Lapid at the Tzur Yigal Cultural Center, link to tickets

23.3, acoustic show at "Ba Be Bar" Hod Hasharon, link to tickets

29.3 Regional Library in Nahalal, link to tickets

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