April 3rd 1953 Craig Taubman, Jewish-American singer (Friday Night Live), born in Millington, Tennessee

Craig Taubman is a singer and composer, known both for his Jewish liturgical music for the synagogue and his popular contemporary music.
Taubman studied music at UCLA and moved to Israel and lived there for almost 3 years, where he played in several bands and ensembles. Later, he wrote a children’s album that led to a contract for music writing for the Disney channel. In 1997 Taubman was asked by Rabbi David Wolpe from the Conservative synagogue ‘Sinai Temple‘ in Los Angeles to write modern music for the Friday night prayer. “Friday Night Live” was performed in the synagogue once a month at first, and then every two weeks, and had a musical setting, with guitars, clarinets, keyboards, and several singers. Those events were popular among young audiences and were attended by more than 1500 people at a time. The songs that Taubman wrote for this setting were gathered in an album by the name “Friday Night Live”.

Taubman was also the producer of ‘Celebrate Hip-Hop’ a compilation of Jewish hip-hop worldwide that includes tracks by Mook E., Solomon & Socalled, Etan G., and the Hip Hop Hoodíos.