On the Samira Toufic, Sabah, and the Ayyam el Loulou debacle

Bassem Feghali impersonating both Samira Toufic and Sabah on The Stage (LBC)

Well, this has been sitting on my chest for a while. In 1986 our late national diva Sabah released her hit single "Ayyam El Loulou" written by the late Elie Choueiri. Not only that, she followed the hit with a film as well, staring her and the late Karim Abou Chacra (here). Whereas there were many "versions" to this story not the late of which is the one told by female impersonator Bassem Feghali recently in "The Stage" which is broadcast on LBC and hosted by Carla Haddad (and due to a directing trick he impersonated both divas singing the hit at the same time as the image above shows), the original story goes like this:

Elie Choueiri first sold the song to Samira Toufic. This being the war, the artists could not easily go to studios and record and release new singles or albums or whatever. So Toufic took her time. Choueiri ended up selling the song to Sabah, who promptly recorded it and released it. Toufic started singing the song live in her own repertoire (interestingly, the first instance of Toufic releasing the song officially was 1994 even if by then it was a staple in her concerts). So in that summer - there was the same hit by two different singers. Both had their fair of success mind you.

Sometime in the 90s, both singers were reunited in a TeleLiban program (if I am not mistaken with Abdel Ghani Tlais), and he asks them point blank about the debacle. Toufic simply says:

انا شتريتا بالاول وما سجلتا وكانت ايام حرب العالم بدها تعيش

(I bought it first and did not record it, and these war times and people needed to live (meaning make money - pointing to Choueiri selling the song to both of her, and Sabah))

To which the Sabah retorted with:

ايه بس انا بحبها بصوتك اكتر

(Yes but I love it in your voice more than in mine)

Seriously, what should have been major drama, saw the two artists - who at the time were still making new music - instead of pulling each other's chignons, they simply dismissed the whole incident.

If both singers took the highroad about it, I remember a different story when Dominique Hourani released her song "Wawa Ah" (booboo too hot) followed very closely by Haifa Wehbe releasing "El wawa" (the boobou), both singers went into a mediatic war about the term and really went all out berating the other. When to begin with it was not even the same song. Which is why the Samira Toufic/Sabah issue still impressed me of how they settled things and moved on, demonstrating how much of great ladies they were.

The strange double life of the Barilla jingle in Lebanese pop culture

Credit: Lebanon Dikkene

That Barilla jingle! The one drilled into the collective memory of the Lebanese population. Yes, that one! One of the many many achievements of multi-hyphenate creative Elias Rahbani who left us at the beginning of this year. But you know how it happens, a musician produces a hit song, the song gets used in an ad - it happened gazillions of times.

But what if I told you the reverse happened in this instance. Case in point? Our legendary diva Sabah and her own hit single "wa3douni w nattarouni" - you will realize that it is the exact same beat as Barilla.

Usually this means that the hit was produced (by Elias Rahbani) and he was commissioned by Barilla to put new lyrics to it (side note - Rahbani who composed "Tafta hindi" for Raja Badr did exactly that for Niers luncheon meat in an ad starring Dalida Baroud when she was still at LBC in the 80s). Actually, in the case of Barilla, Sabah who had an ear for potential hits and a great sense of hype, heard the Barilla jingle and asked Rahbani to pen a song on the same music. Naturally, a mega hit was born. But as I said, it was born "the other way around" - with the advertising coming first.

Tony Kattoura - the man who gave the population a needed smile.

All right, I admit I did not watch him live because simply I do not watch television at all. But I woke up to the phenomenon of "Captain Tony Kattoura"... His style of singing are light-hearted songs with cute lyrics about anything from love, to bemye w riz, to all other topics.

Sure it is easy to laugh him off. But we do live in a world where a tiktoker went to number 3 in the UK charts for his rendition of sea shanty Wellerman, so basically stranger things (no pun!) have happened. But the craze of Tony Kattoura who is trending on Twitter tells you how much the Lebanese populace needed a smile - a laugh, a frivoulous thing just for them to unwind a little. Now, the vocals of Mr. Kattoura could need sharpening, his a capella style (I am not sure but I did detect hints of the great Alain Merheb's houwwara tunes) is truly engulfing however. 

Since I am a big believer in pop culture as a bridging ability to cultures, I think Kattoura's presence was just what the Lebanese needed, which obviously translates into the online craze which has happened since his live on MTV's "3a gheir kawkab" (on another planet) show. Remember however, all the "el fan el habet" (the falling art) as it was used to be called in the 80s, are now its classics. People who dismissed singers are one-hit wonders, or equipped with a bad or untrained voice, eventually proved staying power. And those who did not, still managed to give out hits that are transmitted from one generation to another.

I think of certain examples. If you remember the great diva Sabah, she has some incredible songs which truly fulfilled her vocal potential (by her own admission, the song "Sa3at sa3at" was her best performance - and listen to it and you will understand why), but ask anyone about Sabah, and mostly her more "pop" songs come to mind - ya dala3, Allo Beyrouth, ra2isni heik, or the classic 3al day3a. I distinctly remember the concert by The Golden Age (the trio Sammy Clark, Abdo Mounzer, Le Petit Prince) at the Ramadaniyat festival in 2015: they started with some English and French classics to which the public was lukewarm. But it took the first notes of Clark's "Ah 3ala hal iyyam" and the whole house burned down across all generations, everyone went balistic about it.

So here we are, Kattoura just provided us with one such example. It takes little for people to get excited, especially when they are this down. Now, if he proves to be someone who will stay the course is another matter.

Elias Rahbani RIP

 

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Elias Rahbani passed way. Really I cannot even begin to state what this man did to popular Arabic music. I am not a musicologist but I am a researcher in pop culture and his influence cannot even begin to be measured, and no, not just the Fairouz repertoire - I am talking everyone else, the whole artists he fostered and those whose careers he pampered, or the greats he collaborated with (many of the late Sabah songs were his compositions!) not to mention advertising jingles galore (Barilla anyone?), or the songs he made for children (3ammi bou massoud) or the eternal theme songs (Allo? Hayete) and the list goes on!