David Broza

David Broza had already reached stardom inside Israel as a folk-rock singer and songwriter before he achieved wider notice abroad through several English-language albums issued in the first half of the 1990s. His commanding vocal presence, poetic sensibility, and singular fusion of rock, pop, folk, and flamenco earned him recognition as a forceful and adaptable live performer who has appeared onstage with such prominent figures as Paul Simon, Sting, Van Morrison, and Bob Dylan. Among the many releases in his multilingual catalog—spanning English, Hebrew, and Spanish—are the acclaimed 2010 project Night Dawn: The Unpublished Poetry of Townes Van Zandt and the 2014 collaborative album East Jerusalem/West Jerusalem, produced by Steve Earle. A longtime proponent of peace amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Broza has also served as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and participated in numerous humanitarian efforts. In 2020 he issued his first entirely instrumental album, spotlighting his supple guitar technique.

Born in Haifa, Israel, Broza spent much of his early life in England and Spain. Although he had already begun playing guitar as a teenager, his original goal was a career as a graphic artist, and he sold paintings at a street market in Madrid while performing in cafés to earn additional income. As a musician he forged a distinctive approach that merged rock & roll, flamenco fingerpicking and percussion, and impassioned, politically conscious singer/songwriter folk. He scored an Israeli hit with the peace anthem "Yihye Tov" from his 1977 debut album Sikhot Salon, then spent the next decade solidifying his status as a leading figure in the country's popular music scene.

By the late 1980s Broza had moved to the United States, where he began penetrating Western markets with 1989's Away from Home, his first English-language recording. Over the following five years he gained commercial momentum through well-received albums such as 1993's Time of Trains and 1994's Second Street, both of which leaned further into an American contemporary folk direction and led to appearances alongside major artists including Bob Dylan and Sting. The late 1990s and early 2000s found him returning to his origins with recordings that blended Hebrew and Spanish while reinforcing his globally informed sound. By the middle of the decade he had already marked twenty-five years in the business, a milestone reflected in two greatest-hits collections: the Hebrew-focused 2004 release Hameitav and the more wide-ranging 2006 anthology Things Will Be Better: The Best of David Broza. Rather than rest on prior achievements, he continued exploring distinctive projects, among them a striking 2007 concert with Shawn Colvin and Jackson Browne at the ancient Israeli site of Masada and a 2010 collection setting the late Townes Van Zandt's poems to new music.

In 2012 Broza received formal acknowledgment of his ongoing humanitarian work when UNICEF named him a Goodwill Ambassador and adopted his song "Together" as the theme for its fiftieth-anniversary celebration. The following year he convened an ensemble of Israeli and Palestinian musicians in an East Jerusalem studio for a joint recording. Co-produced by Steve Earle and Steve Greenburg, East Jerusalem/West Jerusalem stood as a late-career peak for the prolific artist and gave rise to a documentary film of the same name. Another anthology, The Set List, appeared in 2016 and gathered audience favorites drawn from both studio and live sources. Broza returned to new material in 2018 with Taba'at Ha'zahav (The Golden Ring), sung entirely in Hebrew and co-written with poet Tzruya Lahav. Although celebrated for his intense and authoritative voice, his intricate flamenco-influenced guitar playing has remained one of the central features of his music. Seeking a fresh challenge, he recorded his first all-instrumental album at Madrid's Casa Limón studio. A blend of delicate originals and engaging covers, En Casa Limón was released in 2020. ~ Timothy Monger