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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Original Post - Dec 19, 2013 - 01:34pm PT
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I don't expect this to get too far but what the hell.
The Peter O'Toole thread got me thinking.....
I got into Arabic Music in the mid 80's when I lived in the Middle East. Smokey rooms, strange lighting, radically different food, frankincense burning, all seemed to make it fit beautifully.
Back in the states, I was psyched to discover Cheikha Rimitti, the Grand Old Queen of Algerian music, being recorded with American rockers for the first time. This track includes East Bay Ray of the Dead Kennedys and Flea from the Chili Peppers.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Cheikha Rimitti was born in Tessala, a small village in western Algeria in 1923, and named Saadia, meaning joyful . This name did not match the reality of her early life, however, as she had been orphaned as a child and began to live rough, earning a few francs working in the fields and doing other menial jobs.
At age 15, she joined a troupe of traditional Algerian musicians and learnt to sing and dance. In 1943 she moved to the rural town of Relizane and began writing her own songs. Her songs described the tough life endured by the Algerian poor, focusing on everyday struggle of living, pleasures of sex, love, alcohol and friendship and the realities of war.
Traditionally, songs of lust had been sung privately by Algerian women at rural wedding celebrations but were considered crude and unfit to be heard in polite society. Rimitti was one of the first to sing them in public and did so in the earthy language of the street, using a rich blend of slang and patois. She eventually composed more than 200 songs but remained illiterate all her life.
Check this one out!!
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Her fame spread by word of mouth across Algeria during the Second World War until she was taken under the patronage of a well-known Algerian musician of the time, Cheikh Mohammed Ould Ennems, who took her to Algiers where she made her first radio broadcasts. Soon after, she adopted the name Cheikha Rimitti.
She made her first record in 1952, a three-track on Pathé Records under the name Cheikha Remettez Reliziana, which included the famous Er-Raï Er-Raï. This was not to be the record that launched her career, however. That came two years later when Rimitti caused a sensation with the release of Charrak Gattà a daring hit record, which encouraged young women to lose their virginity and which scandalised Muslim orthodoxy. Her outlook and songs did not endear her to the nationalist forces fighting for freedom from French rule during the Algerian War of Independence who denounced her for singing folklore perverted by colonialism.
When Algeria won its independence in 1962, the Government banned her from radio and television for playing on them under French control during the independence struggle. Her songs remained hugely popular with the working-class poor and she continued to sing privately at weddings and feasts.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
By the 1970s she was performing mostly for the Algerian immigrant community in France. Briefly returning to Algeria in 1971, she was badly hurt in a car crash (being in a coma for three weeks) in which three of her musicians were killed.
Four years later she went on a hadj to Mecca, after which her lifestyle (though not her songs or subject matter) changed. She stopped smoking and drinking, but continued her singing and dancing, and by the mid-80s, when Rai was becoming established as the rousing dance music of angry young Algerians, Rimitti was being hailed as la mamie du Rai, the grandmother of the style.
In the 1980s, Cheikha Rimitti moved to Paris, loosening her ties with the Algerian authorities but never cutting herself off from the Algerian people, her first fans.
Her music crossed over to the West and she undertook prestigious concerts in big cities and worldwide capitals as well as collaborating with Robert Fripp and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the "Sidi Mansour" LP in 1994, inaugurating a new electric form of raï.
Her back catalogue was rediscovered by a new generation raï successors including Khaled who has covered "The Camel". Many singers of the new generation venerated her as "The Mother Of The Genre" and Rachid Taha dedicated a song to her, "Rimitti".
Her most recent album N’ta Goudami, released in 2006, was a lustful combination of traditional Algerian and modern rock sounds sung in a deep voice of booming energy that belied her 83 years and garnered enthusiastic reviews [2]. For someone who had been officially banned in Algeria, Rimitti marked rai history by taking the defiant step of recording her last album at the Boussif Studios in Oran.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
So there's my story within a story, how about you?
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Russ Walling
Social climber
from Poofters Froth, Wyoming
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Dec 19, 2013 - 01:36pm PT
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Mediocre at best
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 19, 2013 - 01:37pm PT
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I know, right? I gots to listen to something besides Flock Of Seagulls though, HA!!!
Here she is singing the outrageous "Charak Gataâ" in 1954. This one could have gotten her killed, but it didn't.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Russ Walling
Social climber
from Poofters Froth, Wyoming
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Dec 19, 2013 - 01:41pm PT
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Just yankin' yer chain that is attached to Locker!
Closest I got to appreciating Arab music was in Hueco. Some dude or band called The Egyptian Lover had some good jams back then. He even got boulder problems named after him!
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 19, 2013 - 01:44pm PT
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Yeah, no sweat Russ, I got the connection right off!
Like I said, the lighting, food, frankincense and other smokes made it work incredibly well sitting in an Egyptian bazaar!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Dec 19, 2013 - 01:57pm PT
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My wife went to high school in Alexandria, the home of Oum Kalthoum, "Star of the East."
She was like Barbara Streisand, Joan Baez, and Edith Piaf rolled into one megastar.
My wife has tales of lying in her dorm bed with all the windows open (duh,
it's Egypt and there's no AC) listening to Oum Kalthoum coming from parties
in the neighborhood. We have some of her OG vinyl.
You might also note the strong similarity to flamenco singing.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
"They taught me to regret
the past and its pain."
Shakira, who is half Lebanese, covers an Oum Kalthoum tune in a manner
very easy on the eyes and ears...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Dec 19, 2013 - 02:01pm PT
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Cool stuff Survival thanks!
Listened to the first one at lunch will check out the rest after school!
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 19, 2013 - 02:03pm PT
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Ron, Flea does NOT suck! Go use your grinder to open up that narrow mind brother! It's cool we don't expect any Hispanophobes to get it!
Russ and Reilly, thanks for the contributions! That Egyptian Lover dude cracked me up!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Dec 19, 2013 - 02:13pm PT
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Some pretty good stuff coming out of North Africa, too.
No time now, but I'll try to find some links later.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 19, 2013 - 02:38pm PT
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Yeah that's why he's Flea and you're stuffing fox "holes", got it.
;)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 19, 2013 - 04:04pm PT
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Persian Funk, BEFORE the fall of the Shah, after that, party over...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 19, 2013 - 04:13pm PT
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Either you're a real music fan, trying to listen to the world, with responsibility on the listener, or just a consumer of background beats, in my opinion.
Persian Santana!! Dig that shizz.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 20, 2013 - 11:17am PT
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Marlow!! Thanks for the good contribution!!
One of Rimitti's last recordings, she doesn't sound 83.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Radish
Trad climber
SeKi, California
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Dec 20, 2013 - 11:37am PT
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Nice Stuff! I play dumbek with a Belly Dance group and we also do Rein Faires. Have been learning the drum stuff. There is a vast sea of great Middle Eastern Music out there! Thanks for posting all these cool Videos.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 20, 2013 - 11:41am PT
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Thanks for checking in Radish!
Check these groovy cats out, Persian hippy band, before the Ayatollah shut the show down.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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this just in
climber
north fork
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Dec 20, 2013 - 11:59am PT
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Ron I'm gunna have to call you rontard from now on. Flea is one of the best bass players in the world.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there say, thanks for sharing all this...
a friend of mine, in south texas, her mom taught me about
Oum Kalthoum, i really loved to listen to her...
had many other various favorites, but never knew who the songs
were by, as, they were just old tapes, that were shared with me...
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newport
Sport climber
UK
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This thread reminds me of something a Syrian friend told me a couple of years back, about an American woman who entered "Arab's got Talent" singing Oum Kalthoum songs, despite not speaking a word of Arabic. He said she was so good that his mother was in tears watching it. The singer's name was Jennifer Grout - she is on youtube (sorry cant work the link function)
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2015 - 01:16pm PT
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Thanks for the awesome bump you guys!
I'm always blown away and pleased when an old thread gets dredged up!
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Mar 16, 2016 - 11:28am PT
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During my time in recording studios I had the good fortune to have Miles Copland (brother of Stuart and once manager of Sting) as a regular client. He is a leading producer and promoter of Middle Eastern music around the world. I got to work with Egyptian Rai musicians like Cheb Mami and superstars like Chaled. But I will never forget the Palestinian virtuoso of the oud and violin, Simone Shaheen. Here’s a track from "Blue Flame" (2001,) one of his albums for which I was mastering engineer.
I have some crazy stories about Miles Copland, but they are for the campfire. If you remember the early Sting film "Dream of Blue Turtles" you’ll remember the scene where they are rehearsing in a huge arena in Paris, and the base player is having trouble with a lick. He tells Sting that he doesn’t like it and wants to play something different. Sting says no, the base player digs in. Miles stands up and yells at him “So tell me this, if I fire you and get a new bass player right now, how many people tomorrow night are going to want their money back?” Miles Copland is formidable.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Mar 16, 2016 - 01:34pm PT
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^^^ Beautiful.
The Simone Shaheen track is not authentic, although he can be. Manoochehr Sadeghi is pretty dialed in though.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
I know. Unadulterated spray... :-)
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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The oud and the kora are two of my favorite instruments. Amazing sounds.
I was fortunate to hear Simon Shaheen at Womad around 2000. He has done some good work with Bill Laswell
Check out Rabih Abou Khalil's arabic/jazz fusion music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysxv8dc4ru4
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