Calypso in Farid El Atrash's film, Mā Ta’ūlsh le Ḥad (1952)

I've been reading Margaret Farrell's excellent dissertation ("Aspects of Adaptation in the Egyptian Singing Film", CUNY 2012) and learned this: the operetta " Mā Ta’ūlsh le Ḥad" which concludes the film of the same name (1952) runs consecutively through these styles: Modern Egyptian, Tango, Waltz, Calypso, Arabic traditional, Egyptian traditional, Egyptian samba. I was familiar with Egyptian music adapting all these styles but it was "Calypso" that really stuck out. Fuller doesn't discuss this segment, so I checked out the clip on YouTube. It's amazing. The calypso segment (yes, with calypso beat, starting at 5:19) features a Sudanese singer (I don't know who it is), black dancers, and Samia Gamal dancing in (subdued) blackface. Farid El Atrash joins in the calypso song at the end. Check out the entire operetta, it's great. Samia Gamal dances throughout, she's the best, and the woman singing in the operetta is Nur al-Huda.

A side note on calypso, courtesy Billy Bragg's new book, Roots, Radicals, and Rockers. The mass migration of West Indians to the UK was launched with the arrival on June 21, 1948 of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in Essex. On the boat were two of calypso's finest singers, Lord Beginner and Lord Kitchener. Lord Kitchener was filmed on deck singing his new composition, "London Is the Place for Me." Newsreel footage was shown around Britain and calypso was presented as the music of the new immigrant community. One of the earliest calypso recordings to be released in the UK was Lord Beginner's "Victory Test Match Calypso" (1950) in celebration of the West Indian cricket team's first victory over England. 

It is said that the world craze for calypso was launched in 1956, with the success of Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song." So Egypt -- or maybe it was Sudan -- was ahead of the cultural curve.

Leila Mourad's brother Mounir: another Egyptian Jewish artist

I recently learned that the great Egyptian singer and actress Leila Mourad's brother Mounir Mourad was also a prominent showbiz figure in Egypt, a singer, actor, and composer.

Son of the great Egyptian Jewish singer and composer Ibrahim Zaki Mordechai (known as Zaki Mourad), Mounir was known for, among other things, his efforts to incorporate jazz music into Egyptian popular music.

He wrote the music for one of Shadia's big hits, "Wahed, Etneen" (One, Two), which you should check out. The Hawaiian guitar at the end of the song is just perfect.

Like his sister Leila, Mounir converted to Islam after he married. His wife was the actress Soheir El Bably.

But unlike Leila, it seems that Mounir was not accused of relations with Israel, and so he remained active as an artist at least into the 1960's. His film appearances are quite delightful, and I've found several on youtube. They show him doing fare that is somewhat more "modern" (not sure how else to put it) than that done by his sister, and would seem to put him on the avant-garde side in the Egyptian popular music scene.

Check out this jazzy number, "Ayna Tadhhab Hadha al-Masa'" (Where are you going this evening?) from the 1955 film Appointment with Satan (موعد مع ابليس), which features Mounir on vocals (and he co-wrote the music with Mahmoud El-Sherif).

This is another delightful one, "Isti‘rad al-Batta" (Duck Review -- not really sure how to translate this), from the film Bint al-Hitta (Local Girl, 1964), with Mounir on vocals (and he composed the music). It's also notable for the dancing of the divine, inimitable Samia Gamal.

This long number is really a scream. It's called "Skatch al-Kura (Ya Hadarat al-Mustama‘in)" or Football Sketch (O Distinguished Listeners), sung by Mounir, and again, his composition, and one showing his equal facility with modern show tunes and traditional Egyptian mawwal. It's from the film Naharak Sa‘id (1955), and it's a marvelous musical production, beautifully filmed, by director Fatin Abdel Wahab, who later married Mounir's sister Leila (I'm not sure which year, but definitely after this film was made.

According to the wikipedia article about Mounir Mourad, he wrote the music hits not just for Shadia, but several for Abdel Halim Hafez (including the great "Dahk wa La‘b") as well as hits for the likes of Warda, Muhammad Qandil, Hani Shaker and others.

Finally, download a zany instrumental with insane Farfisa, called "The Factory Theme," here.

Dalida in kufiya

The great French singing star, born in Shubra, Cairo, Egypt. I have no idea what the source of this photo is, or when or where it was taken. But I love it.

And just for good luck, here's Dalida as Iolanda, singing "Desiderio di un'ora" in the 1954 Egyptian film Sigara wa ka's (A cigarette and a glass). She is making Hoda (Samia Gamal) jealous as hell.