But the good Rabbi persevered and began to develop an act combining a rock n' roll spirit with down home Yiddish wisdom. When he reached the states in 1969 Sol was playing weeknight gigs at the Paramount resort in the Catskills, New York. Hotel manager, Tippy Goldstein remembers the Rabbi's development as a performer:

"We had this Tikki Lounge set up for all the seniors and the Swingin' Rabbi, that's what we were calling him then, the Swingin' Rabbi, would come tooling on stage and rip through Born To Be Wild and some Hendrix thing and he was super duper. Granted, we had some audience casualties, strokes and such, but man could that guy rock!"

Mostly, the Swingin' Rabbi never let his message be lost in the showbiz glitter. Record executive, Rory Kleinman remembers:

"I was at a show once in the Catskills and Sol does this Moon Landing Tribute with David Bowie's Space Oddity and the place explodes. I was at the Meatloaf premier at Epic Records in New Orleans in '77 when the place went nuts, but this was bigger! People were on their chairs waving American flags he'd given out before the show. Man, he was bummed when I told him that in Bowie's song, the hero, Major Tom dies in space and that it was a metaphor for the failure of technology. He still refuses to do the goddamn song anymore."