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.

Cover Cheikhs

A holiday gift from the invaluable blog Jewish Morocco, this take on three covers from Algerian singers.

1. Mahieddine Bentir (who I blogged about previously, in a post kindly cited by Jewish Morocco), does a cover of "Le marchand de bonheur" (done here by André Roc), called "Anaya Bouhali."

2. Lili Boniche does a cover of Charles Aznavour's "La Mama," called "Ya Yemma." (Jewish Morocco is of the opinion that Boniche's cover is more powerful than the original. You decide. By the way, Aznavour was born Shahnour Varenagh Aznavourian, to Armenian immigrants to France.)

3. Salim Halali does a cover of Yossele Rosenblatt's "Ma Yiddishe Mama." Hilali keeps the same title but does the song in Arabic. It's amazing. Jewish Morocco thinks it's the only Yiddish song translated into Arabic.

The post also mentions that Lili Boniche, like his Jewish-Algerian compatriot Luc Cherki, even recorded a disco EP. Check out Cherki's "Discoriental" here. I wish Jewish Morocco would provide the title of that Boniche-gone-disco track.

And I really really wish that someone will turn up the Mahieddine Bachetarzi cover of Josephine Baker’s "J’ai deux amours" that Jewish Morocco mentions. ("J'ai deux amours/Mon pays et Paris.")

Algerian twist

Check out this youtube video from apollon1965 (who is no doubt Algerian), where he plays one side of an e.p. by an Algerian singer named Karoudji. The first track, "Brigitte Bardot Bardot," is very Cuban in its feel, especially when you get to the piano interlude starting at about 1:15, and it's not really a twist. Karoudji sings it in that distinctive francarabe style developed by Algerian popular musicians beginning in at least the 1930s.

I am unable to make out the title of second track (starting at 2:55) from the record jacket. It opens with a kind of flamenco guitar intro, but then shifts into a cover of Chubby Checker's 1961 hit "Let's Twist Again," which hit #8 on the US charts, and charted throughout Europe as well. "Let's Twist Again" in Algerian Arabic! It's a pretty decent cover too, rockin' sax solo.

According to apollon1965, Karoudj was a singer originally from Oran, who sang rock'n'roll and twist in the early 1960s. I'm not sure whether this was recorded prior to Algerian independence (July 1962) or after.

I've been able to find out nothing else about Karoudj thus far other than the fact that he also recorded a cover of Johnny Hallyday's 1961 single "24,000 Baisers." (It must have been a hit in France, as it was covered by several other artists, among them Dalida and Bob Azzam.) Here's the cover of Karoudji's EP.

According to the writeup by the amourdurocknroll.fr website, Karoudji recorded "24,000 Baisers" in French. The other tracks, "Si Tu Voulais," "Twist à B.B.," "Zinek," "Yasmina," and "Rock's Twist," seem to have been recorded in Arabic. The EP was released in 1963 (after independence) on the La Voix du Globe label, in Oran and Paris.

There is also a film about the twist in Algeria, director Mahmoud Zemmouri's Les Folles Années du twist (The Golden Years of the Twist), released in 1986. I've only seen some clips of it, but it is about two young Algerian men who are obsessed with rock'n'roll and dressing like hip rocksters and are disinterested in either working or the war of liberation. The only information I have about the music in the soundtrack is that it features at least one song by French pop star Richard Anthony, known for covering US rock'n'roll songs in French (as was Johnny Hallyday). Anthony even did a version of "Let's Twist Again," which he recorded in English.

Anthony was born Ricardo Anthony Btesh, in 1938 in Cairo. Son of a textile manufacturer originally from Syria, he lived the privileged life of the Levantine in pre-revolutionary Egypt, and was of course a polyglot, schooled in the UK and France. He launched his music career by recording covers of US rock songs in French, and had his first major hit as a rocker in France in 1958. 

There's another late-fifties early-sixties Algerian rock'n'roller -- Mahieddine Bentir, who put out "Optimiste Twist" in 1964. The song won the prize of the 5th festival de la chanson méditerraneéne (about which I've not been able to find anything). He sings it in French, but it has just a bit of Eastern flavor, and he even calls it a "twist Orientale." Music and lyrics were composed by Bentir himself. Perhaps the optimism he expresses is that of his newly independent country. It's recorded with a French group, Jean Claudric et son orchestre, who appeared on numerous French recordings (including some by the Algerian Jew and French pop star Enrico Macias, born Gaston Ghenassia), and it was put out on the El Frida label (which I assume is Algerian). (The song also seems also to have been issued under the name "Manach Dalam (Twist Oriental)" on the Spanish label Vergara.)

There is an even more remarkable rock'n'roll song from Bentir, very jazzy, called "Scooter," which I really love. This one is sung in Arabic. It's not clear when it was released, some sources say late fifties, others early sixties. It really rocks.

The only other track I've been able to find from Bentir is the rock song, "Prête-moi mille balles" (Lend me a thousand bullets), which apparently evokes the Algerian revolution. 

Bentir was by all accounts an important figure in this period, but I've not been able to find out much about him, and some of what I've found seems unreliable. For instance, the claim that he placed second in the 1966 Eurovision contest, and although his song was clearly superior, he was denied a victory because he was an Arab. But in fact he was not an entrant in Eurovision, that year or any year. (Algeria does not compete in Eurovision, in any case.)

But we do know for certain that Bentir was prominent enough to have been one of those Arab artists who appeared on Algerian television during the colonial period (between 1958 and 1962). Here's a photo of a Bentir appearance from 1959, which I took from the very fine documentary Alger Oran Paris: Les années music-hall.

Last note: I love this EP cover, put out by Philips in France, which was once for sale on-line, but alas, no more.