“Fashionable to be Ethnic”: Malka Marom, Yorkville Reimagined, and the CBC’s A World Of Music
Abstract
In 1999, looking back at her 1960s career as a folk performer, Malka Marom commented that she and her former singing partner, Joso Spralja, had reached mainstream success in Canada when it was considered “fashionable to be ethnic.” Here, Malka is referring to the mid-1960s, when she was classified as an ethnic folk singer in Toronto’s Yorkville Village folk scene. She performed alongside Canadian folk “greats” such as Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, and Ian and Sylvia. Malka and Joso released four studio albums through Capitol Records of Canada and were later chosen to host their own CBC television show, A World of Music, which aired on Saturday nights after Hockey Night in Canada in 1966. This thesis situates Malka, a woman of colour, within the American Folk Revival, the Yorkville Village coffee house scene, and the national-cultural landscape of 1960s Canada. These explorations constitute an argument for Malka’s place in the Canadian folk music canon, which is predominantly regarded as a white, singer-songwriter genre. Analysis of period newspapers, archival footage, and a personal interview with Malka Marom support the conclusions of this study.