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Various Artists:
Give Me Love: Songs Of The Brokenhearted - Baghdad, 1925-1929 |
| Formats and Pricing |
CD
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List Price: $19.98
Price: $18.50
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| Description |
In the mid-1920s The Gramophone Company employed two or three Europeans to criss-cross Iraq. They logged regional demographics, assessed the German competition, and checked out the scores of record shops and hundreds of musical venues. In Kerbala its man fearfully disguised himself as an Arab.
This was the groundwork for three sessions, conducted in Baghdad in the second half of the decade, which produced nearly one thousand recordings — and drawing on their full range, Give Me Love is a wondrous, deeply poignant glimpse of social living since obliterated, in which ethnicities, faiths and traditions appear woven richly and meltingly together, however precariously.
There is dance music featuring Arab folk singers from the countryside, backed by professional Jewish musicians in Iraqi styles popularly termed 'Egyptian', and perfected in nightclubs where the first duty of the secular women singers on this album was prostititution. A Hebrew hymn is kick-started with a cry of 'Allah!', most likely from one of the Jewish performers. There are beautiful high and lonesome Kurdish violin improvisations; and some unaccompanied circular breathing on a zourna so unearthly it seems to cross late Coltrane with Sun Ra. All the songs are characterised by searing emotion and crises of feeling; many by erotic urgency.
Startlingly restored at Abbey Road; with full translations and notes — including an extensive interview with a citizen of Baghdad throughout this period, who knew many of the musicians here personally. |
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Track Listing
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Ya Yumma Weya Baba - Mulla Abdussaheb
Min Fergetak Lilyom - Sayed Abbood
Soubhanak Allah - Dahi BenWalid
Khouthni Bthemmetak - Sultana Youssef
Abuthiyya - Salim Daoud
Taqsim - Khedayer BinKessab
Anouh Ithal Hathy - Mulla Seoud ElKoweity
Kassem Miro - Said ElKurdi
Wehak el Kab Walkossein - Siddiqa ElMullaya
Fahasboukom Hatha - Hdhairy Abou Aziz
Taqsim - Kemani Noubar
Lega Taresh Habibi - Badria Anwar
Aman Aman Zakko - Said ElKurdi
Ma Tehenn Alayya - Siddiqa ElMullaya
Shlon Aslak - Sayed Abbood
Taqsim - Kementchedji Alecco
Abney Eqdah, Pt. 1 - Salim Daoud
Abney Eqdah, Pt. 2 - Salim Daoud
Wenini - Hdhairy Abou Aziz
Malek Ana - Sultana Youssef
Ahis Ras Eddelil - Badria Anwar
Taqsim - Saleh Ibrahim |
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| Label |
HOJO - Honest Jon's |
| Number |
35 |
| Subsidiary Artists: |
Mulla Abdussaheb
Sayed Abbood
Dahi BenWalid
Sultana Youssef
Salim Daoud
Khedayer BinKessab
Mulla Seoud ElKoweity
Said ElKurdi
Siddiqa ElMullaya
Hdhairy Abou Aziz
Kemani Noubar
Badria Anwar
Said ElKurdi
Siddiqa ElMullaya
Kementchedji Alecco
Badria Anwar
Saleh Ibrahim |
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