Local folk musician Bob Zentz was bestowed a 2025 Music Lifetime Achievement Award from Veer Magazine during a ceremony at Elevation 27 last month. With a career that includes nearly every aspect of music – as a writer, performer, retailer, manager, mentor – Zentz has been a musical staple in Tidewater, as well as around the world, for more than half a century.
His introduction to music (aside from his music-playing parents) came with piano lessons. It was at camp, though, when a counselor played guitar and banjo that a young Bob Zentz was hooked. During his senior year at Maury High School in 1962, Zentz played his first gigs, he says.
After high school, Zentz enlisted in the Coast Guard, where he continued writing music, even in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
For a while, Zentz helped manage and often played at the Virginia Beach location of Washington, DC’s The Shadows, a folk club. There, he met Ken Fritz, the club’s DC manager, who also oversaw the Beach location.
With a little help from his parents and Fritz, who had become the Smothers Brothers’ manager, Zentz’s music reached the desk of the music director of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, who hired him. The opportunity enabled Zentz to leave the Coast Guard early, avoid service in Vietnam, and travel to Los Angeles to become one of four new writers on the Emmy-winning program, joining the likes of Steve Martin.
With the television show’s abrupt ending, Zentz and his then-wife, Rosi, returned to Tidewater in 1971. Back home, Zentz taught music at Old Dominion University, and even Sunday School at Ohef Sholom Temple. At the suggestion of his ODU students – who needed guitars, picks, and other instrumental accessories – Zentz opened the first Ramblin’ Conrad’s on Hampton Boulevard near the college campus, “creating a hub for local folk enthusiasts to gather, take lessons, and hear intimate concerts from local and international folk musicians,” writes his daughter, Skye Zentz, in a Veer Magazine article.
Ramblin’ Conrad’s moved twice and had a kiosk at The Waterside, before finally giving way to big box music stores, closing its Ghent location in 1995. Zentz, however, continued his folk music journey, travelling to distant places such as Finland and Australia to perform.
Zentz and his wife, Jeanne, have been together for 18 years, although one of their first meetings took place in 1983 when she interviewed him for Y-96. The interview can be found on their website, bobzentz.com. They reunited in 2007 and, as Jeanne recounts, “our marriage took place on Jan. 4, 2017, in Rabbi Roz’s office at Ohef Sholom Temple.”
For two years during COVID, the couple played music for services and holidays at Beth Sholom Village and sang for the memory unit. “It was a wonderful experience,” Jeanne says. They also hosted a monthly Zoom “Havdalah Hootenanny” for Ohef Sholom members. “We did the Havdalah service first, singing the Debbie Friedman song,” recalls Jeanne. Members were encouraged to take turns performing – and plenty did. “It was a real folk-jam,” she says.
A musician, Jeanne calls herself, “Bob’s backup band.” Anyone who has heard her, of course, knows she’s being humble.
“After 60+ years, Bob is still preaching the gospel of folk,” says Jeanne. “It’s tikkun olam. . . how a song can repair the world.”
Now participants in Ohef Sholom’s weekly Torah Study, Zentz says they “enjoy listening to the different opinions that people bring.”
About the couple’s collection of instruments, Jeanne promptly says there “are too many.” Banjos, guitars, hybrids, squeeze boxes, dulcimers, autoharps, the list continues.
Still, they use most of them.
Later this year, at the New England Folk Festival (NEFFA, most call it) near Boston, the couple will perform and create the “Rambin’ Conrad’s experience in a tent in the 75-year-old festival’s exhibition hall.” They’ll also perform at the Ocrafolk Festival (named by Zentz) in Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. Locally, Zentz will continue to play his regular gigs at the Waterman Museum in Yorktown and the Virginia Beach Antiques Mall, among others.
Zentz is also passing on his passion to a new generation of musicians, teaching music at Ohef Sholom Temple, where he encourages children to write songs and sing.
Through the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Zentz’s music will be archived and available in perpetuity for future music-lovers. According to its website, “Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution… We believe that musical and cultural diversity contributes to the vitality and quality of life throughout the world.”
In 2017, Zentz received a bronze star on the Legends of Music Walk of Fame on Granby Street – the walk recognizes Hampton Roads natives who have made significant contributions of national or international significance to the world of music. Among his fellow honorees are Ella Fitzgerald and Bruce Hornsby. Referring to the names on the Walk of Fame, Jeanne adds, “Bob is the only folk musician and maybe the only Jew.”
From his earliest days at Maury High School to his international gigs to his very local and intimate performances, Bob Zentz has entertained and inspired countless audiences. A talent worthy of a lifetime achievement award.