Israeli singer-songwriter Korin Allal died on Thursday at the age of 69 after battling pancreatic cancer for two years.
Despite her diagnosis, Korin spent the last year on tour, performing for her fans with a chair on the stage in case she needed to sit down.
In November, a month before her death, Allal performed her final show, “Friends Sing Korin Allal,” at Jaffa’s Barby Tel Aviv club, along with musicians Shomi Shabat, Riki Gal, Ehud Banai, and others.
Allal performed several of her most popular songs that night, including “A Small Country with a Mustache,” and “I Have No Other Country,” the now-legendary song she composed in 1982 with lyrics by Ehud Manor and which was sung in its first, iconic iteration by Gali Atari.
Two weeks ago, Allal recorded her final song, “I Will Reveal Your Face,” with Moshe Waldman, a single about God and perhaps an ode to her final days on Earth.
Like many Israeli musicians in the past 15 months, Allal performed following the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack for for evacuees, the bereaved, and hostages’ families, even though she was already battling a fatal illness.
In an interview broadcast about a year ago, she told Channel 12 that she had received two pints of blood before a show.
“I needed it for my body,” said Allal. “Everyone is suffering, everyone for their own reasons, and I also feel like a hostage. I feel like they took me out of my house; I feel bereaved. But we also need these small moments to give a little light and food for the soul.”
Allal was born in 1955 in Tunisia, where she lived until she was eight, when her family had to flee the country because of her father’s work as a Mossad agent.
After her family arrived in Israel she began her musical career, joining various bands as a guitar player and singing in a military choir during her IDF service.
When she completed her service, she worked as a backup vocalist for various famous Israeli artists, including Arik Einstein, and performed in multiple shows and musicals.
Allal’s first solo album, titled simply “Korin Allal,” was released in 1984 after she contracted severe tendinitis. This forced her to stop playing the guitar for a time, and she then studied musicology and began playing the synthesizer.
Israeli musician Korin Allal in an undated photo from the 1980s (Moshe Shai FLASH90)
Over the next 33 years, Allal released 14 more albums, the last of which came out in 2017.
The veteran rocker was often considered Israel’s Melissa Etheridge or Laurie Anderson.
Throughout the 80s, Allal released two more albums — “Forbidden Fruits” (1987) and “Antarctica” (1989) — and composed the music for Ehud Manor’s famous Hebrew song “I Have No Other Country,” which she has performed on various occasions, and Arik Sinai’s “The Kurkar Road.”
In the 90s, Allal released three more albums — “My Mother’s Tongue” (1990), which was mostly covers of French songs; “Rare Species” (1991); and “When It’s Deep” (1997) — as well as producing albums for the band The Witches and singer Gali Atari.
In 2001, Allal revealed her same-sex relationship with her manager, Ruthie Parran, with whom she had two kids, Omer and Yonatan. The couple married in June 2014.
Over the next few years, Allal released “Taninanak” (2001), “Sky Blue” (2004), and “So Simple” (2008). In 2009, she competed in “Big Brother VIP” and placed fifth.
Her last albums were released in the 2010s — “Chocolate Rabbits” (2011), which featured songs for kids; “The Picture’s Gained So Many Colours” (2014); “Ecclesiastes” (2015); and “Like Everyone Else” (2017).
Allal continued to perform over the last seven years of her life despite fighting breast cancer and then pancreatic cancer.
Corinne Allal tackled Ecclesiastes for her first Oud Festival appearance (photo credit: Itamar Cohen/Yoki Photography)
The Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel presented Allal with a lifetime award in 2003, and she received the Landau Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022 for her contribution to Israeli music.
She leaves behind her partner Ruthie and her kids.
Paying tribute to Allal on Thursday, President Isaac Herzog said she was “a rare species of talent and sensitivity, whose unique years-long contribution to Israeli music was a central part of the music of our lives.”
“She was a singer with a particularly special voice, and as a composer, guitarist, and songwriter, she stood out because of her modesty, humanity, and personal charm. Korin’s wonderful songs will continue to be played, and her unique talent will continue to color our lives with a hue that only she could make,” he said.
Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar also commented on Allal’s passing, thanking her for her “work and musical legacy that will stay in our ears and hearts forever.”
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