Angela had asked for me to share some about Arabic music on this blog. Of course, I'm a complete novice when it comes to Arabic music--my band mate, oudist, George Wakim, would be much more qualified. Having said that, I'm trying to discover as much about Arabic music as I can while I'm here and am happy to share with you what gems I discover.
I did discover the "Egyptian Elvis", as he's sometime referred to, and one of the most famous Egyptian singers of all time, Abdel Halim Hafez. He's ranked in the top 4 best Egyptian singers which, of course, includes Um Kalthoum. He was very popular from the 50s through the 70s.
I found this video on YouTube that I'll embed here for your convenience. I'm sure there are a lot more out there, but this apparently is him singing one of his more popular songs. This is very similar to Um Kalthoum's music I've heard--with a full orchestra and long instrumental introductions, and the occasional electric guitar! This clip ends rather abruptly at the 10-minute mark (probably due to YouTube's file size limit) and I get the feeling that he's just getting warmed up. Most of Um Kalthoum's songs I have are 40 to 50 minutes long. It was part of that era. New Arabic songs are much shorter these days. Enjoy!
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