Speaker Scott R. Benarde

Included with Museum admission

This music-, photo-, and anecdote-filled program provides a fascinating look into how Judaism influenced the makers of popular music over the past fifty years. Inspired by a backstage conversation with David Lee Roth during which the star revealed he first learned to sing preparing for his Bar Mitzvah, Benarde spent six years investigating the Jewish contribution to rock music. Benarde was determined to find out how Judaism influenced rock music and the people who created it. The result was his book Stars of David: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Jewish Stories. This presentation leads audiences on an insightful and revealing journey illustrating the Jewish influences in the work of
 many of the best-known (and vital, but not so well known) musical stars of our time.

Scott R. Benarde has an M.A. from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and is the former rock music columnist for the Palm Beach Post and the Fort Lauderdale News / Sun Sentinel. As a freelance journalist, he has been published in Rolling Stone, Musician, Billboard, Variety, and a host of Jewish publications. He lives with his wife, Mindi, and two children, Michael Dov and Shirah Beth, in West Palm Beach, Florida, and currently serves as the Director of Communications at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.