By Lisa Keys
Former Pikesville resident Sheila Dardashti has made music her entire life. But until recently, she never actually wrote any of her own.
Raised in Queens, New York, by Jewish lovers of folk music, Dardashti studied classical guitar in high school. As a young woman, she toured as half of a folk duo with her Iranian-born husband, Hazzan Farid Dardashti, who served as cantor of Pikesville’s Chizuk Amuno Congregation from 1986 to 1997.
Later, the couple incorporated show tunes into their act and performed around the country with their three daughters as The Dardashti Family.
Now, the 78-year-old grandmother of seven, who lives in New Rochelle, New York, is embarking on a brand new musical journey. She recently released her first-ever album, consisting entirely of self-penned songs.
“Build Me a Home” is Dardashti’s loving tribute to her musical Jewish family, all of whom appear on the album. That includes her daughters Danielle and Galeet, the creators of an award-winning podcast, “The Nightingale of Iran,” about their paternal grandfather, a famous singer of Persian classical music before fleeing Iran; and her youngest child, Michelle, who is the “radically pluralist” rabbi at Kane Street Synagogue in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
While Sheila Dardashti was known for writing clever parodies for loved ones’ birthdays, the motivation to try her hand at songwriting grew out of the isolation she experienced while staying with her husband at their winter home in Delray Beach, Florida, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Maybe there was some anger, the craziness in the politics, there was some longing for not seeing my family,” she said. “I missed everybody, but it was more than that. The whole world was longing for each other, right? And I think maybe all that bottled up energy, I figured, what the heck?”
Later, at a backyard bonfire at her eldest daughter’s Westchester County, New York, home, Dardashti pulled out her guitar and debuted two original songs — one written for her husband, the other for her daughter, Danielle.
“I got immediate feedback: Everybody started singing harmony,” Dardashti recalled. “The warmth from the music that we sang way overshadowed the warmth from the fire and the heat lamps.”
Inspired, Danielle’s husband, Roni, said to Dardashti, “Why don’t you write a song for each of us, and we’ll record them and make an album?”
Over the course of the next four years, that’s exactly what she did. “I think I needed a challenge,” she said. “I needed something that was kind of concrete.”
The album’s title track was inspired by Nathan, Michelle’s husband, who is a homebuilder. The song starts about building a literal home — “Build me a home, where the trees reach the sun,” Dardashti sings — but the lyrics soon expand to her hopes for a world “where there will be enough love to go around, and lost dreams will be found.”
Two songs on the album are dedicated to her grandchildren, including “Earth, Trees and Sky.” Two tracks are about her husband, and each of the other six tracks are about their daughters and their husbands.
“Build Me a Home” marks the first time that Dardashti has stepped into the spotlight as a vocalist
“I’m really not a singer. I didn’t get the Dardashti genes,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘Galeet, you should do the vocals on the track; I’ll sing here and there.’ But they all said, ‘No, you sing the vocal track, and then we’ll chime in.’ … I’m singing a little more than I think I would have wanted to, but I kind of got roped into this.”
In an email, Galeet Dardashti wrote, “My 78-year-old mom is such a badass for writing such incredibly beautiful and poetic songs at this stage of her life. Producing this album with my Mom felt particularly epic and was one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever done.”
Of the 10 tracks on “Build Me a Home,” Sheila Dardashti says, “I consider them all very Jewish. Everything about love, and everything about empathy and everything about justice and no fear in this world, to me, it’s Jewish. It has neshama — it has the heart, it has the soul.”
Lisa Keys originally wrote this article for the New York Jewish Week. The article was provided by the JTA global Jewish news source. Jmore staff contributed to this report.
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