A little more on Mahieddine Bentir

I looked a bit more at the short Algerian TV documentary on Mahieddine Bentir that I linked to in my previous post. (I realize that it's a problem that I can't make too much of Algerian dialect. But I can't control my obsessions.) 

Two things: First, there is a reference to a film that Bentir starred in, called Fous de musique or غرام الموسيقي

screenshot from the documentary

It's from the early sixties, filmed prior to independence, a musical, no doubt with some of the rock'n'roll that Bentir became famous for in the late fifties and early sixties. 

Second, please check out Bentir doing rock'n'roll, in 1959, on Algerian television, in the documentary, starting at 4:00. It's very lively, Bentir's dancing -- he does a couple of flips at around 5:00 -- strong backing by a couple sax players, trumpeter, piano and drums. Quite amazing.

Finally, I found, courtesy the blog of the great Algerian music scholar Hadj Miliani, an article about Bentir, from the magazine Femmes Nouvelles, published in Algeria (April 10, 1961). 

There is a lot of information about Bentir's life (born in 1934, in the commune of Ménnerville, grew up in Algiers, worked for the PTT (Postes, télégraphes et téléphones). When he played guitar and sang for some of his friends at the PTT and one of them helped get him in touch with the RTF (Radiodiffusion Télévision Française) and he appeared on the show "Rendez-vous à 13 heures" of Françoise Espel and Jacque Bados. He performed with a band called Orchestre Chenouf, composed of musicians with full-time jobs (station master, anesthesiologist, cabinet maker), who must be the ones who appear in the documentary (and in the clip on my previous blog). 

According to the article, Bentir composed in a variety of genres: "Negro" spirituals, waltzes, jazz, chansons réalistes. And it claims he was the first to launch rock'n'roll in "Oriental" music. His records sold in Alexandria, Rabat, and throughout Algeria. 

As of the date of the article, he had recorded four songs: "Youp! Ya Aoud" (rock), "Sinbad et Amira Cha-Cha" ("cha cha cha oriental"), "Ya mama chérie" (cha cha cha bolero) and "Anaya Bouhali" (style not specified. 

He was also translating some French popular songs into Arabic (I don't know whether these were ever recorded other than "Ana bouhali") and was preparing songs for a singer named Samira -- cha cha cha, waltz, and jazz. 

A more recent account of Bentir, from January 2018 (Reporters: Quotidien national d'information -- Algiers) reports on an hommage to Bentir, and states that Bentir's rock'n'roll song "Scooter" dates from 1955 (there is no mention of the song in the 1961 article) and that the songs Bentir performed on television (see the documentary were "Cha Cha Cha Chechia" and "Anaya Bouhali," a remake of Darío Moreno's 1959 recording, "Le marchand de bonheur" -- this is the clip on my previous blog post. (Moreno was a Turkish singer who made his career in France in the fifties and sixties.)

This article also claims that Bentir made some banners attacking colonialism and because he was sought after by the security forces, he took refuge in Tunisia with the liberation army. Perhaps, although it seems somewhat unlikely, given that the article cited above was published in April 1961. It states that the musical Bentir was to appear in (certainly Fous de musique) was to be filmed in May and June, and we can see from the movie poster reproduced in the Bentir documentary, that the film was in fact released. Algeria gained its independence in March 1962, so the timing does not seem right. But even if Bentir did not flee to Tunisia for anti-colonial activity, he nonetheless continued to enjoy a musical career in Algeria after indpendence.