Hi and welcome to the last part of our Intermission, 'ere at The Audiotopia.
Writing an interblog won't make anyone a 'weblebrity' by the longest scratchin' chalk-mark, because this is unreal, and whatever's on the Interwebs stays there as mere, cold duff. The Internet is like this huge cache of moving memorabilia... a fantasmic world full of nothingness to use but an oxymoron.
I'm doing this scratching right in the back of my mind these days, sayin': is it worth it; truly commendable? or, maybe someone somewhere might deem this as important? Hmm, it's that I still am baby-steppin' in this world of Globlogs. After all, it's all done for the music. Music lives and transcends this pile of pixellated angst bunnies, power-trippers, and no-brow end-'lusers' that want to find some self-worth amongst this e-rabble.
(Sternpidly stupe peops aside, music it is then... les' begin by calling Beirut).
Lubnanyat Athamaninat - لبـنـانيات الـثمانينات:
Today's so special for music, 'cus we're about to hear some beautiful tunes straight from one Middle-Eastern country that never got any deserving airing before; songs, bands, and artists who sang their hearts out for their beloved (and very beautiful) Lebanon (Arabic: لبنان pronounced Libnan/Libnayn).
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| A debka band behind the ruins of Baalebk, 60's Postcard. |
This country is small, but big when it comes to art and music. The capital city of Lebanon (Beirut - بيروت) is so beautiful and very unique so much that it was called the 'Paris of Arabs', and the 'Switzerland of The Arab World' for its sheer beauty, and varied weather patterns: it has many different climates that range from Mediterranean subtropical meadows to Alpine, all-year snow-capped mountains, right to dry, Bedouin-inhabited deserts. Lebanese people are known as free-thinkers, get-goers, somnabitches who really don't give. They know how to live and enjoy their life to the max, even when Israeli bomb shells were falling down by the truck-load in Harb Tammuz (The Second Lebanon War), in October, 2006.
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| From crowded dance-halls to warring crowds: 70's Lebanon. |
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| A belly dancer, 1961. |
Lebanon —
and, Beirut in particular, has always been an attraction site for tourists from all
over the world, and the wealthy Arab millionaire's playground who went there to spend his mils throwin' a coupla thous at some belly-dancer's feet... gamblin' in the world-famous Casino du Liban, which gave it a cosmopolitan tint that witnessed its height in
the early 70's before the Civil War (1975) tore that city into two
warring halves and forced most of the population (almost one-third of the entire Lebanese population left, and that included most musicians), to flee to nearby Jordan and Syria and chose these countries as safe havens for their art and music.
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| Casino du Liban in the early 70's: Beirut's heart and hub of life. |
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Ali Chalhoub on a New-Year's
Eve party poster early 80's. |
Some artists decided to go elsewhere other than neighbouring Arab countries taking their music along with them: it's how Lebanese singers always were trying so hard to become International stars and in faraway western countries like the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Brazil, and France. But, few had any success there except for playing at a handful of schmaltzy New Year parties, or pay-per-night 'personal' concerts in the
mahjar (Arabic for expat country or diaspora), and nary made it in terms of record sales. One has to know that in the Arab world, there are no real 'Hits-Charts', or Billboard-like record sales. Neyt. All there's are some made-up lists of this month or that top-five stars, or an impromptu, end-of-year, pick-your-favourite-star phone-athons. Also, around Beirut, underground music wasn't born until the mid-90's. (Check this
site, and this one
here to get the 411 on the latest Lebanese underground artists).
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| Singer Tony Hannah, 70's. |
Anyways, flashback to the early 70's we still can see the wealthy, Arab-American expats who visited Lebanon on their summer vacations for example, as a great source of encouragement for fledgling Lebanese artists as they paid them quite well in coo' cash for their parties, and in turn some singers went to play in America, staying there for many years before deciding to come back to Lebanon after the war was over in 1990. Most of these singers became American citizens. Some are still there singing for the expat Lebanese community around L.A. and S.F. like our very own 'legendary' moustachioed singer,
Tony Hannah.
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| Israeli troops withdrawal in 1982. |
The Lebanese Civil War (El-Harb El-Ahliye El-Libnaniye - الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية) erupted when Muslim Palestinian guerrillas led by Yasser Arafat, tried to take over Beirut backed by Russian intelligence (who were again, backed by the C.I.A.), only for the Christian militias to fight them back, and bam! Israel came butting by, backing some militias to add to the chaos. (Note: there's none other than Filmon Wehbi's song 'Kalashnikov' to best depict this SNAFU, which you'll find in the comp). Israel tried again in 1982 to invade Beirut (power tactics as usual), but their troops withdrew back to the border.
Christian militia fighters (left), and Muslim guerrillas in Beirut mid-80's.
Then, and to add stink to the the already-pilin' shit-heap... America deployed 1,800 Marines in the same year only for them to get
their collective asses handed back to them in the October, 1983 bombing
which forced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Beirut (Uh, America's
Israeli's cash-cow and 'neyways they invaded Nicaragua in less than a month afterwards these mofotastic lamericunts!). These wars are a deeply-engraved scar in
each and every Lebanese psyche: some recall their country's past thirty or so
years as, an "always destroyed country, but the excellent mood, 'kief' remains" (Arabic: البلد خربان, و
الكيف تمام). They just don't care!
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| Singer Mohammed Jamal on T.V. 70's. |
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| Studio El-Fin '86. |
All and all, the 'shituation' in Lebanon was dire, and music-retardant. T.V. came to the fore ever since the late 70's. The singers who fled outside of Lebanon got a better chance: Jordanian and Syrian T.V.s gave important air-time to those
stars that went there fleeing the war. Television in Lebanon, meanwhile, played an important role in selling these singers that stayed around, and one Lebanese T.V. (Sharikat Television Libnan) was started from a merger of two already-established, older T.V. stations in 1976. This new T.V. station gave the few singers that chose to stay in Lebanon the 'silver screen' star status in the early 80's and multiple music shows were aired; most notably the star-factory Studio El-Fin ('Art Studio' started earlier in 1972 by Rimon Lahoud and Simon Asmar, but was stopped during the war), which gave birth to what became truly the real base for today's Lebanese singers and stars such as Ragheb Alameh who sang there aged only 16 who's now a world-famous singer co-hosting the Arab Idol T.V. sing-offs in April, 2012 along with some other Arab singers.
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| Ragheb Alameh, singing on Studio El-Fin, 1983. |
Other newer, early 90's shows spewed a plethora of 'female' singers who in the mid-90's overcame the male ones until there weren't any 'good' male singers in the pop music scene starting from the mid-90's onwards. Today's Lebanese pop music scene is beyond pathetic (to say the least), where well over 1000 female singers who don't know how to sing are trying to become the Next-Monroe! Singers like Haifa Wehbi, Alissa, Nancy Ajram, Dominique, etc... aren't singing: they're gossip-fighting with each other trading out so much 'meh-you-suck' instead of 'music'. They all suck big time.
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Mansour Rahbani:
The father of Classics. |
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Fairuz in the dark:
in one of the Rahbani musicals. |
Well, this timespan of almost 25 years of intermittent war and peace (1975-1990), is what really matters here to us. Most of the songs that were made during that period of time became classics whereas their style and musical arrangements had nothing to do with classical Lebanese musicians such as Fairuz (Fairuzyat); the Rahbani Brothers (Mansour and Assi Rahbani's Rahbanyat), Zaki Nasif (Nasifiyat), Nasri Shams Eddien (Nasriyat), Wadeh El-Safi (Wadehiyat), etc... . It's still, though what most Lebanese and Arab people refer to in a loving way as The Golden Days of Lebanese Music, or Zahabyat - ذهبيات, Lubnanyat - لبنانيات, Beirutyat - بيروتيات.
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| Debke troupe, Baalebk Festival, 1971. |
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Joseph Azar, 70's
and a debke dance. |
Today, we're not going to feature any single song by these classic musicians, and instead will focus on the ones that sang either classical Lebanese music in a popular style heavily influenced by the masters, or songs purely of an eastern-western style (call it 'Weastern'). Moreover, we shall give a huge tribute to debke music and songs here in this compilation, in addition to the 'usual-suspect' forms of Lebanese popular singing styles and dances like dalouna - دلعونة: a form of debke which was how Armenian house-builders used to join hands, and 'stomp' their feet on rooftops to make it even that originated from Armenia in the 1800s, and as they did so, they called on God for help, or tha el-oun (ذا العون - The Almighty Helper. Note to reader: very few Arabs know the origin of this word); a'taba - عتابا: melodic, sad tunes sung in remorse or a'atab (عتب), for those who went and left their lovers and country; mijana - ميجانا: a shouting welcome for guests sung in the most high octaves ever conceivable by human voice where the songs always start with the line of Ya Min Jana: "Oh those who came visiting us!"; mawal - موال sharki - شرقي: a generic form of Middle-eastern dance, belly-dance music, funk, pop-rock, and other folklore-influenced pop styles of the late 70's and 80's.
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| Raja Zahr, live on stage, 70's. |
Lebanese singers depended so much on composers to write their music. Besides the Rahbani Brothers who were strictly folk-inclined and gave budding
singers like Ghassan Salibah, Melhem Barakat, Hoda Haddad, Ronza, Joseph
Nasif, Joseph Azar, Raja Badr, Abdo Yaghi, Marwan Mahfouz, the list is
endless... their first singing tickets, Raja Zahr was certainly the first of these to fuse western pop songs into Arabic ones, and later composed music in the 80's for singers like Rabe'a El-Khouli and Walid Toufic. Other well-known and influential composers were Ehsan El-Munzir, Filmon Wehbi (he sang his own songs, some of which are featured here today), plus some few composers from Egypt writing music for Lebanese singers to sing in their Egyptian accent, all the way contributing to the mainstream styles.
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| Ziad Rahbani in concert, early 80's. |
Then came the late 80's that gave birth to two totally different styles in Lebanon that had nothing to do with the place where they came from: first is 'Khaliji' music (Arabic: خليجي), which most Lebanese singers who were down on their luck and those who couldn't find any place to sell their records (or, even sign any record contract because the civil-war and then the Israeli invasion laid to waste almost 70% of Beirut's buildings), went to oil-rich Arabian Gulf countries to try and sing their songs in laughable Khaliji accents (called Aghany Khalijyah til this very day, with singers like Diana Haddad still shitting in high cotton in the oil-choked Emirate Dubai singing this odd-ball style. She even married an Emirati who owns Al-Nojoum music satellite channel, but got divorced in 2009). The second? Well, they tried their hands at the avant-garde! Free-form "oriental" jazz, quasi-bebop, and samba music played by Fairuz' son Ziad Rahbani who's the leader in this field (check this 'Yoube link for some of his live concerts), plus maybe few others like Makhoul Kassouf (مخول قاصوف) who played proto-fusion, and acoustic folk music. Ziad's first two albums however, were made with only belly-dance tunes, and Kassouf started in a beat rock band.
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| Bellydance: Lebanon's main asset. |
At the end, one should realise that, 80's hit-songs were a mere continuation of older 60's and 70's music with added western instruments like the electric guitar and the drums. The two eras have no differences between them other than the way the 'same' music was rearranged into a more International style. Also, and in a turn of chronological tides, late-90's and 00's singers took the 80's songs and remade them again in newer pop-ish arrangements. Today, there's a huge 'tunestalgia' for these 'middle-ground' songs of the eighties that were and still are the true essence of all that is Lebanese music because they conjoin the past with the future.
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The Bendalis playing in Jordan
Dora Bendali singing, early 80's. |
As for the comp itself, I am sure you all will like and dig these tunes right here. The themes are enormous. Mostly, the singers sang about their love for their country, the hardships of the war, the economic crunch after the war, etc. The Bendali Family (عائلة/عيلة بندلي), for instance have some cool songs that really paint well this scene in Lebanon around the late 70's while they were giving concerts elsewhere in Jordan, Syria, Egypt, the U.S., and Australia. You will find 60 songs by this twelve-member band featured in the compilation: a whoppin' tote, making them the most-covered band/artist in the entire comp. They also sang about having to leave Lebanon, or going back and/or the need to be back home for good (ghourbeh: expatriation; which is such a recurrent theme in all Arabic Pop songs), and of course songs about beauty and love, marriages, folk dances, sahriye (سهرية - night gathering), children's songs, and many more. Some of their songs were covers of ahem, disco songs by say, Boney M. still they had this eastern-flavour that's cute, and funny all on its own. In future posts, I shall upload all of their cassettes: rare, lost audio gems of beautiful Leb-pop music. Be sure of that.
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Singer Hoda Haddad,
with Melhem Barakat. |
The language these songs were sung in vary from formal Arabic qasida and Andalusian love songs or muwashah, to some that are sung in Egyptian and Khaliji accents. The rest are sung in traditional Lebanese tongue known to be the sweetest, suavest, most charming way to speak Arabic. There's also one song sung in Armenian by Hoda Haddad. She's my friend Mutasim's favourite Lebanese singer (he's the collector I told you about in the previous post). Hoda's nickname was 'Yasminit Esham' ('The Jasmine of The Levant') in the 70's. Want to know something special about Hoda Haddad? She was (wait it...) Fairuz' middle sister! To wit, Hoda was another Fairuz casualty as I call most 'unsung' female Lebanese singers: her older sister stole the limelight from her, when in all honesty, Hoda's voice, looks, poise, and prestige were far better than Fairuz' by streets and miles. Not just that: adding insult to injury? Another Hoda Haddad came to the scene in the late 80's and that latter was more famous than her! Such injustices, really. And so, to him — and her — I dedicate this comp's first song: Bayni We Baynak ('Between You And Me'), which whenever Mutasim started to listen to... he'd close his eyes, say nothing and just smile. This entire comp would put a huge smile on his face, I'm posit 'bout it. Live long and listen strong, Mo'!
The Compilation:
In
12 Volumes, 125+ artists/bands and more than 500 songs... this
compilation is an extensive look at the late 70's, and 80's pop scene
in Lebanon. There aren't any comps to be found like this one here, trust
me. This is actually nothing, because in future posts you're going to
see this comp as a dwarf when most of these artists and bands would get
their own separate posts 'ere at The Audiotopia. Yeah!
'Nuff said? Now, dig it.
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| Sammy Clark in a kids' party, late 80's. |
Note: Lebanese garage and beat bands like The Sea-Ders, The News, The Kool Kats, etc... belong to the 60's and early 70's and will sure
get a very detailed, separate post-spot on their own. Do not miss it! Also, noteworthy is the fact that some of the artists who got featured at the earlier post like Sammy Clark, Salwa Al-Katrib, Elie Choueiri, Samir Yezbeck, Samira Tawfic, Issam Rajji, and Azar Habib has got a few songs that are to be found in this comp, too.
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| Lebanese-Armenian rock band The News, early 70's. |
To wax nostalgic now, I remember making small houses with my earliest Lebanese audio-cassettes
collection that I used to shwinx from my elder brothers, and sisters way
back in 1987. As an Arab, I feel proud 'bout knowing this
music. Now it's all yours. Guess that's reason enough to blog about music,
amirite? Music is funtastic!
Lebanese pop music is above all brave and entertaining. Lebanese people are free, and fun-loving. Their music is very sweet, and great to listen to. Here in hopes that you'd enjoy the 500+ songs that I, tirelessly, for the last two weeks or so, have been compiling for your listening pleasures.
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One of the oldest known pictures for a debke band.
This was taken in Bint Jbeil, Nabatiya. Year, 1898. |
(Bonus? I added another album smaller than the rest as a bonus for you guys. Funjoy it! There's a link
that has a good collection of Lebanese music videos mostly belonging to
the 70's/80's era. The titles are all in Arabic, so keep a Goo'-Trans
handy JIC. Have fun).
Knock yerselves out!
Featured Artists/Bands:
Hoda Haddad (هدى حداد), Edgar Semaan (إدغار سمعان), Adonis Aqel (أدونيس عقل), Mohammed Hejazi (محمد حجازي), Ghaleb Antar (غالب عنتر), Melhem Barakat (ملحم بركات), Joseph Abu-Malhab (جوزيف أبي ملهب), Sobhi Murad (صبحي مراد), Farid Iskander (فريد إسكندر), Ghassan Salibah (غسان صليبا), Ahmad Doughan (أحمد دوغان), Nadim Berberi (نديم بربري), The Bendali Family (عيلة بندلي), Filmon Wehbi (فيلمون وهبي), Fouad Ghazy (فؤاد غازي - originally Syrian), Georgette Sayegh (جورجيت صايغ), Madonna (مادونا), Maya Yezbeck (مايا يزبك), Mohammed Jamal (محمد جمال), Osama Rahbani (أسامة الرحباني), Rana (رنـا), Nichola El-Ustah (نيكولا الإسطة), Samir Hannah (سمير حنـا), Mohammed Mara'i (محمد مرعي), Ronza (رونـزا), Mohammed Al-Abid (محمد العبد), Fariq Al-Liqa (فريق اللقاء), Milad Ghareeb (ميلاد غريب), Immad Sabagh (عماد صباغ), Mohammed Iskander (محمد أسكندر), Joseph Namnam (جوزيـف نمنم), George Karam (جورج كرم), Hadi Aziz (هـادي عزيـز), Abdo Yaghi (عبدو داغر), Joseph Sakr (جوزيـف صقر), Samir Yezbeck (سمير يزبـك), Khalil Hallak (خليل حلاق), Le Petite Prince (Al-Amir Al-Saghir - الأمير الصغير)), Cho Chou (شوشو), Mazin El-Bayea'a (مازن البياع), Afif Shyaa (عفيف شيـا), Muna Maraashli (منى مرعشلـي), Jacquline (جاكليـن), Misaed Radwan (مسعد رضوان), Robert Shama'a (روبير شمـا), Walid Toufic (وليد توفيق), Mustapha Uzbatchi (Lead singer of The Magical Fingertips Band, or 'Ferqat Al-Anamil Al-Sehryah' - مصطفى أوزباشي و فرقة الأنامل السحرية), Odette Kaedeh (أوديـت كعدة), Raja Badr (رجـا بدر), Sammy Clark (سـامي كلارك), Nihad Tarabyeh (نـهاد طربية), Khedir Naser Eddin (خضر نصرالدين), Dalida Rahmeh (داليدا رحمة), Joseph Nasif (جوزيـف ناصيف), Najah Salam (نجاح سلام), Nazieh El-Moughrabi (نزيه المغربي), Fahd Akiki (فهد عقيقي), Ayman Kafrouni (أيمن كفروني), Mazin Bayea'a (مازن البياع), Ragheb Aalameh (راغب علامة), Khaled Ali (خـالد علي), Douha El-Sabagh (دعاء الصباغ), Mazin El-Sawaf (مازن الصواف), George Wassouf (جورج وسـوف), Minem Freiheh (منعم فـريحة), Laura Hatim (لـورا حاتم), Joseph Azar (جـوزيف عازار), Sary El-Badiya (سـاري البادية), Hikmat Wahbi (حكمت وهـبي), Nihad Fatouh (نهـاد فتـوح), Jiselle Nasr (جزيل نصر), Azar Habib (عـازار حبيب), Rabe'a El-Khouli (ربيع الخولـي), Hoda Rouhana (هدى روحـانا), Marwan Adham (مروان أدهم), Marwan Mahfouz (مروان محفوظ), Samir Hannah (سمير حنـا), Tony Hannah (طوني حنـا), Samira Tawfic (سميرة توفيق), Diab Mash'hor (دياب مشهـور), Hiyam Youness (هيام يونـس), Adnan Fakher Eddine (عدنان فخرالدين), Fareeq Lana (فريق لـنـا), Elie Choueiri (إيلي شويري), Salem El-Hajj (سليم الحاج), Mohammed Sharif (محمد شريف), Jadd Nakhleh (جـاد نخلة), Boughos (بوغص), Sabah (صباح), Al-Amira Al-Saghira (الأميرة الصغيرة), Hadi Hazim (هادي هزيـم), Aiydah Chalhoub (عايدة شلهـوب), Pascal Sakr (باسكـال صقر), Taroub (طـروب - originally Syrian), Yousef Shamil (يوسف شامـل), Souad Hashim (سعـاد هاشم), Ridwan Sermini (رضوان سرميني), Carl S. (كارل س), Fadwa Obied (فدوى عبـيد), Albert Farhan (ألبير فرحـان), Fareeq Al-Liqa (فريق اللقاء), Nour El-Hadi (نـور الهدى), Majda El-Roumi (ماجدة الرومي), Ali Chalhoub (علي شلهوب), Majdly (مـجدلي), Adib Abu-Antoine (أديب أبوأنطوان), Antoinette Fares (أنطوانيت فارس), Fouad El-Hakim (فؤاد الحكيم), Nabil Harfoush (نبيل حرفوش), Salwa Al-Katrib (سلوى القطريب), Samir Samra (سمير سمرة), Amir Yezbeck (أمير يزبـك), Hiyam Saadah (هيام سعادة), Mishka (مـيشكا), Ziad Ghusoun (زياد غصـن), Farid Sakr (فريد صقر), Tareq Hilwani (طـارق حلواني), Mohammed Hussien (محمد حسـين), Randa Shemoun (رندا شمعون), Laura Khalil (لورا خليل), Umaima Khalil (أميمة خليل), Ihsan Sadiq (إحسان صـادق), Marwan Rahbani (مروان رحباني), Saad El-Husseini (سعد الحسيني), Issam Rajji (عصـام رجـي), Nadim Barbara (نديم بربرا), Houeyda (هـويدا), Patrick Simson.
*phews!*
Remember: this is jus' the beginning.
AMF!
H.H.
