Happie Hoffman – Memphis Flyer

Happie Hoffman Leans Into Love

When imagining a musician on tour, a series of stock images probably go through your mind: a scruffy van loaded with gear, T-shirts in bad need of a laundromat, fast food wrappers stuffed in the back of an amp. But in reality, musicians have their antennas out for any venue that works, traveling not only by road, but by rails, air, and even on the high seas. Take Memphis native Happie Hoffman, aka Happie, a singer/songwriter in the indie-pop-folk vein who recently played a cruise ship. That alone isn’t that novel — there are many musically themed cruises of the Caribbean — but this one left from Tromsø, Norway, bound for the Arctic Circle.

If that sounds like a dream vacation to any Memphian oppressed by the current heat wave, there was far more to it than that, and it’s emblematic of Hoffman’s unique commitment to community. She describes her fellow passengers not as fans or patrons to be entertained, but as “about 150 friends, friends of friends, and creative entrepreneurs.”

Uniting all these friends was a desire to heal the world in multiple ways. The many friends on the tour came together under a few organizations that approach the issues of our day in complementary ways. “The cruise,” says Hoffman, “was in partnership with a morning dance company called Daybreaker, the Pachamama Alliance that’s working on saving the Amazon and the rain forest, and the Belong Center. Their mission is to help end loneliness.”

The Daybreaker organization may be unknown to some, though word of their unique mission — “to dance with reckless abandon at daybreak, sans substances, turning nightlife on its head” — has rapidly spread over the past decade. And it’s evolved beyond dancing, with multiple global destinations and “immersive expeditions to the most tender parts of the planet … raising millions of dollars for climate initiatives,” as their website explains. Along the way, co-founder Radha Agrawal wrote the book Belong: Find Your People, Create Community, and Live a More Connected Life and founded the Belong Center.

And, given that the poles are indeed some of the “most tender parts of the planet” in this age of climate change, Hoffman’s journey makes more sense. “I have played on four voyages to Antarctica over the past two and a half years, that started with this group of friends traveling, and this was our first time going to the Arctic,” she says.

It all dovetails nicely with Hoffman’s concern for community in all its manifestations. As detailed in our 2022 feature on her, her melodious voice first found an outlet at Temple Israel, eventually leading to her being named cantorial soloist there. “I’m a fully integrated part of the clergy team at Temple Israel,” she said at the time. “My aim is to move people spiritually, and my mode of doing that is music.”

She now lives full-time in New York City and is no longer as involved in Temple Israel services, singing mainly during the High Holy Days here, but the quest to move people spiritually has remained. Lately, her approach to that has not been through Jewish spiritual music or protest songs about the petroleum-based economy, but through her own observations about love.

Happie Hoffman as a child with her father (Photo: Ann Margaret Hedges)

Indeed, her latest songs, dropping as singles throughout this summer and ultimately culminating in an EP this fall, focus solely on love. Still, that leaves a lot of emotional territory for her to explore as she travels and performs, single-mindedly pursuing her secular music career. The first single, for example, which dropped last month, is all about her father.

“This album is about different cases of love in our lives, whether they be romantic, or dear friends, or familial,” she says, adding, “and familial love is a beautiful aspect of that, a very real one.” It’s evoked beautifully by the album’s title track, “Shooting Star,” a meditation on how fleeting our lives are, even as the love between a parent and a child endures. The video for the song is being released on Wednesday, July 3rd, and it’s a work that comes very much from the heart.

“I wrote the song when I was home for the holidays, in a songwriting session with one of my best friends and cowriters, Ori Rakib. And as we began to write the chorus, he did a thing that people writing music often do. He said, ‘This song is about your dad.’ And I immediately started crying. And then the song poured out of us.”

Songs that pour out from that emotional place are what Happie Hoffman is all about, and these days, with the world in turmoil and climate disasters looming, she may well have found the key to the higher sense of community that we’re capable of, one that can span the globe: the many faces of love.

Should you attend services at Temple Israel in Memphis, there may soon come a day when you recognize the cantorial soloist’s voice as the same voice in the latest indie pop internet hit. It may seem unlikely, but in Memphis all things are possible. Of course that part about the latest hit is pure speculation, but it’s not far-fetched, given that the leading musical voice of Temple Israel is Happie Hoffman, a singer with uncanny pop instincts.

Yet, while the artist known as Happie is already turning heads, with two performances at this week’s Austin City Limits Festival, don’t think that her work at Temple Israel is an afterthought. Indeed, the singer’s love of music was born in the synagogue, and her ongoing work there remains at the core of her being. “I hold space for people spiritually in Memphis, and they see me as a spiritual comfort and leader. I’m a fully integrated part of the clergy team at Temple Israel. My aim is to move people spiritually, and my mode of doing that is music.”

It all started half a lifetime ago, when the singer, now 30, was still in high school. “I’ve been singing at Temple since I was a teenager,” Hoffman says. “That’s where I really learned to sing in front of people, and learned to sing Jewish music. One of my mentors in the Jewish music world told me, ‘Happie, your voice is beautiful. Why don’t you try learning guitar? You could do so much.’ That person was Rick Recht, a prominent Jewish musician based in St. Louis, who would often travel to Memphis to mentor young musicians. And at that point, I bought a guitar off of Craigslist and started watching YouTube videos on how to play.”

It was a pivotal moment in the singer’s life, and following music’s call has already taken her around the world, often singing Jewish spiritual music at significant historical, political, and religious sites. That came about through the BBYO (formerly the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, Inc., now known only by the acronym) and a musical partner Hoffman met there named Eric Hunker. “BBYO is very big in Memphis. It’s the world’s largest Jewish teen movement. Eric and I met through that organization, inspiring teens around the world,” Hoffman says. “We worked — and still do some work together — in Jewish spiritual communities around the world. We played in Auschwitz, at the United Nations, in Russia, in Moldova, and all over Eastern Europe. We both feel incredibly lucky to do this work, and inspire and connect with people musically. I’m very grateful that we’re able to still work together.”

The two also worked in more secular forms, as with their 2016 album, It’s Yours, a largely acoustic work in the Americana vein, featuring their stellar harmonies. Two years after that, they released Hamavdil, an EP of their Jewish spiritual music. Then, in 2020, she was named cantorial soloist at the synagogue where it all started. “Taking this position a few years ago was a return to home,” she says.

That was only a year after the end of Eric and Happie’s collaborative first chapter, though, the singer stresses, “We still work together.” Lately, known simply as Happie, she’s pursuing a more individual path. And her appearance at the Austin City Limits Festival in Texas this week is “definitely a milestone,” she says. “I’ve been playing around New York with my band since February. This is our first big festival, and it coincides with the new music and album in the coming weeks.”

The new album, Heartbreak Season, due November 11th, chronicles Happie’s quest for a deep romantic relationship, mixing acoustic instrumentation with sleek, radio-friendly electro-ambience. “My Jewish music was vulnerable, and letting people know they are not alone,” Hoffman says of her new direction. “In some ways this new music is no different — it’s about being open — but I am writing about my heart, so these songs are personal in a different way. My hope is to help people connect to their emotions through music. Whether I’m singing Jewish spiritual music or indie pop. I want to try to help people tap into that space, where they can access emotion.”