chesterfield, mo. | Rehearsing in his basement recording studio, Rick Recht looks every bit the rock musician. He wears a retro-looking T-shirt with worn jeans. His medium-brown hair is tucked back behind his ears.
His left foot taps the beat while he strums an acoustic guitar, and when he sings it’s — wait a minute — in Hebrew?
Recht’s songs, recorded in English punctuated by Hebrew, with a strong message of faith, have gained a devoted following. He plays contemporary Jewish rock music, and Recht is hoping more people will soon find out that such a genre exists.
Referred to in some circles as the “Jewish Dave Matthews,” Recht and his band tour nationwide, giving about 150 performances a year. They get fan mail and plenty of requests for autographs. One concert photo shows teenage boys who have decorated their bare chests to read “Rick Recht Rules!”
In addition to a well-equipped recording studio, his home office has staffers and a video editing room. He is starting several enterprises: a record label to represent other artists and two Web sites to raise the profile of Jewish radio and music.
He also has shelves of Rick Recht Band merchandise, from knit hats to medical scrubs printed with the band’s name. Anyone searching for some boxers emblazoned with “All Tov” — the Hebrew equivalent of the expression “It’s all good” — need look no further.
Recht hopes his recordings, concerts and merchandise give Jews a unifying and tangible way to celebrate their faith.
“We want to give them the opportunity to show their Jewish pride and let their friends share it,” he said.
Recht, 35, lives in the St. Louis suburb of Chesterfield. Raised by an Orthodox mother and a Reform father, his parents brought him up practicing in a Conservative congregation. But Recht said he drifted from Judaism in college and began a career as a secular rock musician, sometimes sleeping in his Chevy Lumina between gigs.
But it was while giving guitar lessons to a woman that he was persuaded to be a song leader at a local Jewish day camp she directed, Ramot Amoona. The young woman, Elisa, now 33, became his wife. They have two children, Kobi, 3, and Tal, 11 months.
“I had a life epiphany,” Recht said of his time at Ramot Amoona. He loved working with children and began writing and performing songs with a Jewish message. His work appealed to young people because it had the pop sound they wanted to hear.
He recorded “Tov” in 1999. By 2000, he was on tour almost the whole summer, often playing at summer camps and for youth groups.
Over the years, he has expanded his sound and reach. He is in the process of releasing “Shabbat Alive! Live,” a compact disc and DVD of an interactive worship service including congregation and choral participation. He has recorded a children’s music CD, “Free to Be the Jew in Me” and a secular project, “What Feels So Right.”
He is also working with the Anti-Defamation League on an upcoming project about dismantling racism called “Tear Down the Walls” and plans to distribute free copies to Jewish teenagers in St. Louis, he said.
Rabbi Daniel Freelander, vice president for the Union for Reform Judaism, a coordinating body for 900 synagogues in North America, called Recht one of the more popular emerging artists in contemporary Jewish music.
“For someone in his age bracket, he’s about as well-known as they come,” he said. “We need to have more Rick Rechts out there.”
Freelander said Recht could be seen as part of line of contemporary Jewish music, which includes artists like Debbie Friedman, Cantor Jeff Klepper and Craig Taubman, though he notes Recht brings his own rock sound.
Because he believes music is key to almost all religious expression, Freelander would like to see Jewish music “all over the place” and feels that Recht’s work is helping. He said synagogues need to appeal to at least three generations, and music can help to reach all of them.
Recht, who is well-versed in other contemporary Jewish artists like Soulfarm, Moshav Band and Blue Fringe, believes that Jewish music can learn lessons from the current popularity of contemporary Christian music. He praised the high-quality recordings, the reach of Christian radio stations and the way their broadcasts provide a spiritual context for the music.
Recht said, too, that he would like to see his music cross over to a broader audience.
“But not to cross over and leave the Jewish world behind,” he said. “I feel driven to share Jewish music with other people because I feel they’re going to feel that same connection.”