Adam Duritz

You may not know his name, but you know his band! Adam is the dreadlocked singer of Counting Crows. He formed the band in 1991. They were big fans of an Irish singer named Van Morrison, and when Van could not come to his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Counting Crows played instead. They didn't even have a record yet! But Robbie Robertson, who introduced them, sure knew about them; Robbie plays with a band so important it's just called The Band, which was very famous in the 1960s and '70s (Robbie's Jewish too, by the way).

Anyway, back to Adam. He was born in Baltimore. Then he lived in Boston, El Paso, and Berkeley as a kid… and in San Francisco, LA, and now New York as an adult. Does he even bother unpacking anymore? Counting Crows' first album, August and Everything After, was not an immediate hit until people heard the song "Mr. Jones" in 1994. The next albums, Recovering the Satellites, This Desert Life, and Hard Candy also did well. The Counting Crows also toured with many other bands, including Adam Levine's Maroon 5.

Hard Candy had a remake of the Joni Mitchell song "Big Yellow Taxi" (you know: "they paved paradise/ and put up a parking lot"), which was in the film Two Weeks Notice.

So they released a "greatest hits" album. But then something funny happened-- they had another hit! So they had to release the greatest hits album all over again, this time with their new song. It was "Accidentally in Love," from the Shrek II soundtrack, which was nominated for an Oscar! The band even got to perform at the Academy Awards! Other songs of Counting Crows were in the movies Clueless and Adam Sandler's Mr. Deeds.

Counting Crows' live album, New Amsterdam, arrived in 2006. The concert was in New York City, and the title refers to what New York was called when it was first settled but Dutch pioneers (from the old Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands). The old York is in England, but that's another story.

Adam has also started his own record label, helped other musicians produce their albums, and even helped produce movies. In "Mr. Jones," Adam sings "I wanna be Bob Dylan." Well, he did have the chance to work with Bob's son, Jakob, the lead singer of the band Wallflowers, on that group's hit debut, Bringing Down the Horse.

Counting Crows' new album, Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings starts with a song that explains Adam's hairdo: "I'm a Russian Jew American/ impersonating a Jamaican/I wanna be an Indian/I'm gonna be a cowboy in the end." So there you go!

The song is called 1492, after the year the Jews were expelled from Spain by the Inquisition... and also the year Columbus' ships bumped into America by accident (sure, he said he "discovered" it!). Today, there are more Jews in America than anywhere except Israel. So if you think about it, 1492 was the end of one part of Jewish history and the start of another.

Bonus:

The band's name came from a friend's comment. He said that life was as meaningless as "counting crows." We guess he must have been a little depressed! Adam's songs are often sad, so the name works well for Counting Crows.

Aside from the new rock band-leaders we list, we like the Jewish rockers from the classic-rock era: Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon (see this Bonus), Billy Joel, Neil Diamond, Lenny Kravitz (Zoe's dad), and Warren Zevon.

Now... for tons of rock bands with Jewish members, go to Adam Levine's story.

Bonus Bonus:

New York is now said to be home to more Jews than any other city in the world, at any other time in history! But Jews were there all the way back when it was still called New Amsterdam, way before America was even a country-- more than 350 years ago! Learn more about the pioneering Jews of New Amsterdam.