Rocker Makes His Music a Matter of Faith

For a rock musician who is relatively unknown, Peter Himmelman has some noteworthy credentials.

--So far, no other American rocker has toured more extensively in the Soviet Union.

--No other American rocker has named an album after an obscure term derived from Jewish mysticism--backing it up with a devout way of life that precludes performing on the Sabbath or eating food that isn’t kosher.

--No other American rocker is Bob Dylan’s son-in-law.

Himmelman sat recently in a modest Santa Monica apartment where a velvet prayer shawl bag rested on a table in front of a framed poster for Dylan’s 1978 film “Renaldo and Clara.” Between sips of Japanese tea, he talked readily about his recent six-week Soviet concert trek, about his music and about his Judaism, proceeding in the slow, steady way of a man who thinks through what he is about to say.

But the first mention of Himmelman’s father-in-law brought him to a sharp halt. In August he married Dylan’s adopted daughter, Maria (a preschooler when Dylan married her mother Sara in 1965). He became part of a family that Dylan has tried--with considerable success--to keep under an umbrella of privacy. Dylan has even avoided clarifying his own religious position since recording some highly publicized and greatly controversial Christian-themed songs in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.

“You see me clam up,” Himmelman said gently, with a smile. “Of course, I have some relationship with him. I really can’t comment on it. It’s basically a respect for privacy on both our parts.”

Himmelman already has shared as private a moment as any musician could make public: On the morning of Father’s Day, 1983, he went into the basement of his home in Minneapolis and recorded a song of love as a gift to his father, who was dying from cancer. That basement tape--in which Himmelman could be heard sobbing at the end--emerged in 1986 as the title song of his debut album, “This Father’s Day.”

His next album, the philosophically toned “Gematria,” took its title from an arcane method of interpreting Hebrew Scripture that involves attaching numerical values to each letter. With strong melodic hooks and singing that often recalled Elvis Costello, Himmelman went on a search for meaning.

In some songs, he sounded defeated and at a loss to find any sense in life; in others, he was full of affirmation and conviction that every action resonates with moral value. Himmelman says the new album he is recording with Tracy Chapman’s producer, David Kershenbaum, will return to a more personal slant.

Himmelman, 29, is a slender man with long, delicate hands and wrists that could have been painted on by El Greco. His face sports a shadowy growth of beard, deep set eyes and arching brows that convey both intensity and an ironic sense of humor. The irony comes through unchecked when the conversation turns to the state of American culture in general, and rock’s place in it in particular.

“The whole rock industry is a sickening parody of freedom nowadays,” Himmelman said, reserving particular disdain for rock fashion, and for the use of rock in commercials. “It’s almost embarrassing to be a rock musician, other than that I love the music.”

The premise of the Soviet tour, Himmelman said, was “to go to a place where no one has seen a rock performance before, an untried, untested area. It would be a testing ground for my music specifically, and for the whole general idea of rock. Is it really working on its own? Or is it just that there’s so much hype behind it? My contention always has been that there’s something in it that warrants the hype.”

The opportunity arose through some good connections: a reporter from Tass, the Soviet news agency, saw Himmelman and his band play in New York and passed on favorable word to Soviet concert authorities. It also helped that Himmelman had the same American booking agent as Billy Joel, who played three Soviet cities in 1987.

While other Western rockers such as Joel and UB40 had focused previous tours on the major cities, Himmelman and the four-man band that has been with him since his teens covered the provincial hinterland, playing 31 shows in six cities during October and November.

Among them were Yerevan, capital of Armenia (before the earthquake), and the Asian cities of Tashkent, Frunze and Alma Ata, near the Soviet Union’s borders with Afghanistan and western China.

Himmelman said he was troubled to find how well the Soviets have succeeded, despite recent reforms, in stifling Jewish culture.

But the musical side of the trip was all positive. Himmelman played well-attended shows in 3,000-seat theaters--far more substantial audiences than he ever has commanded as a headliner in his own country.

Himmelman played chewing gum and soda jingles to loosen up his audiences, getting them to laugh with him at some of the more trivial uses of American pop, and he capped each show with an invitation for concert-goers to dance on stage with the band. The Soviet listeners’ response wound up confirming Himmelman’s faith in rock’s power to communicate.

“That was underscored 1,000 times for me,” he said. “I only hope I can hang onto it and infuse it into my life, starting with the production of this next record. Everyone’s always trying to stay true, to stay pure. This was another reminder, not only of my desire to stay that way, but of the dire necessity and responsibility to stay that way.”

Himmelman paused, then quoted a saying picked up in his study of Jewish scriptural commentaries: “The Messiah will be ushered in through music and theater.”