Stories of identity

REFLECTING on their Jewish identity with a sombre theme amid “ghastly” recent family events inspired a new album by Deborah Conway and Willy Zygier.
Their Stories of Ghosts plays on Old Testament themes from the perspective of the “devout Jewish atheist” partners in life and music.
“Willy and I both grew up in Jewish households. Willy is the son of holocaust survivors but there was not a lot of religion in their house or in my house either,” Conway explained.
“What’s interesting about being Jewish is you can certainly identify with the community and not believe in God.”
The couple chose 10 of the 18 songs they wrote for the new album to create a strong theme.
“We got rid of everything that was a side issue,” Conway recounted.
“It’s a sombre record. There’s a lot of turmoil going on in our personal lives and we’ve had some fairly ghastly family events.”
Zygier told Jon Faine on ABC 774 radio recently that he was the uncle of “Prisoner X”, Ben Zygier, the Australian who died in an Israeli prison in 2010 and whose story attracted recent media attention.
Zygier and Conway have performed and recorded together since meeting in 1991 when she employed him as a guitarist.
Eight records and three children later they continue to enjoy a “full, wholesome partnership”, Conway revealed.
“We’re in each other’s pockets and it’s not a problem for either of us. We both feel stimulated by the other musically and we both enjoy each other’s company.
“We like similar things and our admiration for songwriters like Paul Simon, Randy Newman, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan is probably apparent in our stuff – and they all happen to be Jewish,” she mused.
Having three teenage daughters at opened Conway’s eyes to new technologies, she laughed.
“We’ve been taking requests on Facebook so if people are interested in hearing a particular song they can write to us. As much as possible we’ve been trying to make that possible.”
Deborah Conway and Willy Zygier play Drysdale’s Potato Shed on Sunday.