He's a singer, he's a bassist, he's a keyboardist he's a guitarist, he's basically a multi-instrumentalist.
He's rock, he's pop, he's jazz, he's blues, he's new wave, he's even oriental, he's a Multi-genre.
He is Polish, Israeli, he lived in London, he studied and worked in the USA, He is a multi-national.
He's a composer, lyricist, actor, session player and producer so he's basically Multi-talent.
His name is Alon Oleartchik, he is Multi-tasking and he is celebrating his birthday today !!!
So let's tell you 33 facts about the "eternal" child "who never grows old":
(Photo: Concert Promo)
1. He was born on June 15, 1950, in Poland as Alexei Oleartchik, a Jewish father and mother of Polish descent.
2. His musician father Edward Olarchik was a composer and Alon watched and studied while he was composing music pieces.
3. At an early age he began to learn to play the piano.
4. When he was 7 years old, he immigrated with his family to Israel and lived in Netanya and later in Bat Yam.
5. As a child he listened to classical music under the influence of his father, but when he grew up he was mainly influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter, Eric Clapton, Cream, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, but also jazz artists.
6. At the age of 12 he decided to leave school and and moved to a music school. He later went on to study at a military boarding school in Haifa, where he fell in love with the guitar and began learning to play it.
7. His first band was "Ha-Tzabar Ha-Dokrani" along with Eldad Ziv. The band played mostly covers of "The High Windows."
8. The first album of his life "Ella Fitzgerald in Hollywood" - he received from his father during his studies at the boarding school.
9. In 1968, Olarchik enlisted in the "Nahal" band of the Israeli army, where he met Danny Sanderson (who also auditioned him), Meir Fenigstein, Ephraim Shamir and Gidi Gov.
10. When he was released in 1971 he continued to collaborate with Danny Sanderson in the band "The Schnitzels". He later played in Ahrela Kaminski's jazz band, "Platinum".
11. In 1973, Olarchik and his friends from the Nahal band - Danny Sanderson, Meir Fenigstein, Ephraim Shamir and Gidi Gov, in collaboration with Yoni Rechter and Ytzhak Klepter, formed the band "Kaveret".
12. Along with Danny Sanderson, Olarchik is one of the lead writers of the band "Kaveret". Among other things, he participated in writing the songs "Baruch's Boots", "I Gave Her My Life", "Yu Ya", "Goliath", "Tango Frogs", "An Aging Child" and "Lu Lu".
13. Together with the band, Olarchik will, among other things, represent Israel at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "I Gave Her My Life".
14. At the same time, Olarchik participated in the recordings of the albums "Love's Many Faces" and "The Good Old Land of Israel Part II" by Arik Einstein, the album "14 Octaves" by Avner Kenner and Yoni Rechter and the debut album of Gali Atari.
15. In 1976 he left "Kaveret" and in 1978 moved to study jazz at "Berkeley College" in Boston USA. After graduating he moved to New York where he played a variety of styles: "New Wave" with "The Hooks", jazz with Jerome Harris , Jazz-rock with "ZINC" of Eddie Jacobson. During that time he played in Israeli clubs and was exposed to oriental music and oriental artists who performed there.
16. In 1984, Olarchik returned to Israel in honor of the first reunion show of "Kaveret". On the occasion of the show, he wrote and composed the song "Meir and Alon", which tells the story of the return of the drummer Meir Fenigstein from the United States.
17. In 1985 his first solo album "Olarchik" was released It was was a success and a large number of hits were released from it. Alon played almost all the instruments. Olarchik did not think he was capable of singing at all, but Yair Nitzani, who was then director of "Had Artzi", persuaded him to do so.
18. The songs "A New Guy Comes to the Neighborhood" and "She Walks the Roads" from the album, were initially offered by him to Ofra Haza, but she was not interested.
19. In 1987 he released his second album - "Amusement, as if". On this album, too, Olarchik sang and played all the instruments - guitars, keyboards, a drum machine and percussion. Olarchik also wrote most of the songs, including "Analog Guy in the Digital World" and "All Night I'm in Your Garden."
20. Olarchik even touched on classical music. In 1994 he composed a classical work for the Israel Festival. The piece was played together with musician Andre Haido and the Symphony of Raanana. The first section of the work was dedicated to Frank Zappa, who had died shortly before.
21. In the same year, Olarchik participated in the album "Radio Blla Blla" by the band "Natasha's Friends", in the song "I do not dance when it's sad", which he also wrote together with the band.
22. Olarchik is also a sought-after producer, among other things he produced for Etty Ankry the successful debut album "See You in the Eyes", the second album "You Called Me Esther", in which he arranged most of the songs, and the first album of the band "Tipex" were he also sings background voices.
23. He also produced one of Gidi Gov's most successful albums - "No More Day", and composed a number of songs such as "Why Your Heart Is Like Ice" and "Girl in Glasses", and also played piano, keyboards, bass and guitars and sang background vocals.
24. He wrote and recorded several jingles, including "Tel Aviv - a city without a break".
25. Olarchik also wrote music for films, including in the music for the play "Lizisterta 2001" by Anat Gov, the music for the film "Miss Entebbe" in which he participated and for the film "A Thousand Wives of Naftali Siman Tov".
26. We said that Olarchik also grew up on jazz, so in 2011 he released his album "Olarchik Style", which features jazz arrangements of his familiar songs.
27. The song "Let's Say I'm Yours" One of Alon Olarchik's biggest hits, is one of the most popular "Chuppa" songs at weddings in Israel.
28. In the year 2004 he released the song "Let's Hug", which he composed to the words of Hannah Goldberg as part of the TV show "9 Hours and a song" on Channel 24, in which the artist writes and records a song within 9 hours.
29. Olarchik has a considerable acting career, including starring in the film "Shards" alongside Etty Ankry in the film "Miss Entebbe" and in the "Burganim" TV series and "towers in the air".
30. He has collaborated with many "Mizrahi" singers, including Zohar Argov, Avner Gadsi, Boaz Sharabi, Shimi Tavori and more.
31. He has also collaborated with many other artists such as, Shlomo Yidov, Shem Tov Levy, Yizhar Ashdot, Jane Bordeaux, Mikiagi, Lip Band, Dana International and more.
32. In 2017, Olarchik won the ACUM Award for the Ehud Manor Lifetime Achievement Award.
33. As part of his solo career, Olarchik has released 15 albums to date, the most recent in 2021.
And now let's listen to a playlist of his songs that we edited especially for you: Click Here.
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"Face/Off" - Israel's Rock Blog & Podcast
Picture: Zappa