Paul Poiret and his wife Denise at "Persian Fête" party

French fashion designer Paul Poiret with his wife Denise at his 'Persian Fete' party on June 24, 1911 #persia #persian #iran #iranian #orientalist #fashion #style #paulpoiret

A photo posted by REORIENT Magazine (@reorientmag) on Sep 6, 2015 at 3:33pm PDT

(I've posted about this phenomenon previously -- it was very trendy for the adventurous middle and upper classes in the US and Europe to dress up in Middle Eastern fashion. Check out this post and this one. I'm very pleased to find this photo of the Poirets, courtesy Reorient's Instagram feed. You should follow it too.)

Kufiyaspotting and turban spotting: Gustav Klimt

photo: Imagno/Austrian Archives

Famed Viennese painter Gustav Klimt, at an artists' party hosted by Otto Primavesi at his house in Winkelsdorf (Moravia), 1916. Otto and his wife Eugenia were among the most important patrons of Klimt in his last years. Otto was owner and director of the Primavesi Bank, based in Olmütz (now Olomouc, Czech Republic). Klimt designed the Primavesis' country house at Winkelsdorf.

Orientalist parties like the one depicted above were a common feature of bourgeois life in the US and Europe in the first three decades of the twentieth century, as I've blogged about previously: here and here.

Turban alert: TM Mike Love (Beach Boys)

I came across these images of Mike Love from a post on the super super music blog Aquarium Drunkard. It presents and discusses a video of The Beach Boys singing with the Alexander Hamilton Double Rock Baptist Choir. The song, "That Same Song," is, well, vintage Beach Boys + gospel. It was released on their album 15 Big Ones in 1976.

One of the things that struck me was Mike Love in turban (the second photo shows him with Al Jardine.)

Mike had gone to Rishikesh, India, as part of a group of sixty, organized by The Beatles and including also Donovan and Paul Horn, in February. There they studied Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I guess this is evidence that Mike was still fully in to TM in the mid-seventies.

While they were all there, The Beatles wrote and recorded a lot of music, that would show up on the White Album and Abbey Road.

And they recorded this, which never appeared on record: the very very BeachBoysesque "Spiritual Regeneration/Happy Birthday Mike Love," on the occasion of Mike's birthday.

I guess the most Beach Boys-sounding Beatles song ever recorded is "Back in the USSR," penned by Paul McCartney. Mike Love has stated that he encouraged McCartney to "talk about the girls all around Russia, the Ukraine and Georgia" to make the song sound more Beach Boys.

Dolly Dots and Muhammad Abdo

I had never heard of Dolly Dots til a couple days ago, when my friend Gamal posted this video on Facebook. It's Dolly Dots' 1981 hit, called "Leila Queen of Sheba."

What I noticed right away -- besides the fact that the song is very Euro early 80s Abba-esque -- is the fact that the chorus, where they sing "Leila Leila Leila" seems drawn from a hit by Saudi singer Mohammad Abdo's famous song "Aba'ad."

I got to know this song when I was doing fieldwork in the West Bank in 1984-85, it was much beloved by my friends, and I came to love it too. I thought the title was in fact "Leila," as that word is sung over and over in the song. And in fact many in the Arab world know the song by that name as well. If you're interested, here is a translation and transliteration of the lyrics.

In any case, check out Abdo doing a live version of the song. (And isn't it lovely? One of my favorite Arabic songs ever.)

The "leila" section of the song comes in at about 8:40. Yes, it's late in a very long song, but rest assured, this is a very well-known segment of the song.

Listen, then go back and listen to the Dolly Dots "Leila." Don't you think their chorus is taken from the Abdo original?

Now, the I didn't know this song while my friend Gamal did is that Dolly Dots are one of those European groups (Dutch in fact) who never had any hits in the US but were big throughout Europe and the Middle East. (A much more famous case is Boney M.) Dolly Dots were so popular in Egypt (where Gamal is from) that they even toured the country.

I posted my conjecture about the origin of the Dolly Dots' "Leila" chorus on Facebook, and my friend Robin shot back with this video. It's a re-formed Dolly Dots performing their '81 hit in 2007.

What is notable about this live version is that Dolly Dots are backed by a small Arab music ensemble (a takht), which serves to bring out more fully the Arab elements (and the Abdo influence) than did the original.

Neil contributed the fact that the ensemble is composed of Jamil Al Assadi, on qanun and Latif Al-Obaidi on oud, who belong to the Iraqi Maqam Ensemble, which regularly backs Iraqi singer Farida Mohammed Ali (based in The Netherlands), and the late Behsat Üvez from Turkey on derbuka. That is, it's a first-class ensemble.

(Shukran, Gamal, Robin and Neil!) 

Added January 20, 2014: I meant to say last night that I think one reason that the Dolly Dots were never a hit in the US is: the name sounds ridiculous!

More on Saâda Bonaire's "Bedouin funk archive" & their "oriental disco-funk tunes"

"Bedouin funk archive" and "Oriental disco-funk tunes" -- this is how Dazed Digital describes the recent eponymous release of this '80s project's canned recordings. They also describe it thus: "Combining the occasionally stony, stark minimalism of European electronics with the groove-laden funk of Turkish and Kurdish folk."

Dazed Digital has interviewed DJ Ralph “von” Richtoven and singers Stephanie Lange (but not singer Claudia Hossfeld) on the occasion of the release. What I found of interest was how they describe the recordings "Eastern" feel. Excerpts follow:

von Richtoven: The band? Well there was no real band. It was a lot of friends from the music scene. I also gathered some traditional Kurdish folk musicians from the local Turkish communist party to play some more Eastern instruments on the tracks. I didn't really want a band – Saâda Bonaire was a pop-art project...

We saw the strong influence that Afro-Cuban sounds had on American music. We could hear the influence that Caribbean and Indian immigrants had on British music in the 80s. In France, they had the Rai music from the Maghreb and a lot of musicians from West Africa. In Germany, we only had Turkish immigrants... millions of them. In the 1970s I studied social work. By the 1980s, I was working for the German government's immigration department. I was responsible for many immigrant social clubs in Bremen. I was also collecting music tapes from Turkey and Egypt since 1975. In theory it was obvious what we had to do: fusion. In reality it was very difficult and almost impossible.

So there you have it: Cool German artists want to emulate the hip reggae and bhangra sounds coming out of England and the "rai" and West African influence on French music. [As an aside, I'm sure this an anachronism, as I seriously doubt that pop rai was much evidence in Germany as early as 1982.] But they "only" had Turks around...who happened to be Kurds who belonged to the Turkish Communist Party?

Don't you wish music journalists asked more questions?

But maybe not, if they don't know the difference between Bedouin and Turks...

Saâda Bonaire

This is a publicity photo for the early '80s synth dance band Saâda Bonaire. Problematic, isn't it? Especially given the name, the first half meaning happiness in Arabic (سعادة).

The 'ayn is often rendered as "â" in French.

I guess this photo (evoking what? catwoman in burka?) goes with not only the name of the group but also their track "The Facts," which is a wild synth-pop-goes-world dance number, entirely of its time, synth with "Eastern" instruments mixed in. Fact recently announced the "rediscovery" of the group and the release, over thirty years after their recording, of a single released in 1982 (two sides, it was the days of vinyl) and 11 previously unreleased tracks. All produced by the amazing Dennis Bovell, who also worked with The Slits and The Raincoats and Pop Group among others.

Of the tracks that I have managed to hear so far, it's "The Facts" that has that Eastern feel. Fact says it "is a decisively weird collision of Pet Shop Boys-influenced FM synth, pummeling disco rhythms, deadpan female vocals and, yep, Middle Eastern flutes and what sounds like Oud. It shouldn’t work at all, but we’re glad it does." I don't think it's flutes and I think it is a bouzouki (or in Arabic, buzuq), but Fact does get the idea. It does, somehow, work. (But I admit, I love that 80s synth sound.)

And it seems, according to this source, that the musicians on the recordings were "culled from the local immigration center." Hmmm, I wonder how much they were paid...

culled from the local immigration center

joined by dozens of local musicians culled from the local immigration center. - See more at: http://capturedtracks.com/news/coming-soon-saada-bonaire-2xlp-cd/#sthash.vrHPVB4B.dpuf

Here's the video for the song, featuring the two German vocalists, Stefanie Lange and Claudia Hossfield, in various states of undress. Very eighties. You've been warned.

Stefanie Lange and Claudia Hossfeld

And here is the cover of the release, just out on November 12. Yep, Arabic on the cover.

Here's a photo of Saâda Bonaire without the weird "burqa":

And a couple more Saâda Bonaire tracks on youtube. "Invitation" (with bagpipes that also "work" and what sounds like a sampled Middle Eastern female vocal). "You Could Be More As You Are." And "Funky Way," which is very dub, but with "Eastern-sounding" horns, and the best track of theirs I've heard so far.

However, I just bought the album (it came out two days ago, 12 November), so maybe I'll find more that I like.

Note: for some strange reason "Funky Way" is not on the just-released album. So grab it from youtube. You've got the link.

ADDED November 16: You can now stream the entire album here.

turban alert: The Turbans

Thanks to Jerry Zolten, the author of "'I Ain't Lyin'!: The Unexpurgated Truth about Rudy Ray Moore" (Living Blues, May-June 2001), who I quoted in an earlier post about turbans and Rudy Ray Moore. Zolten told me about the 'fifties doo-wop group from Philadelhia, The Turbans.

The Turbans had a national hit in 1955 with "When You Dance." You may have heard the song, as I had, but I didn't know, or remember, the name of the group associated with the tune.

Another great song from The Turbans, released in late 1955 in the hopes of following up the success of "When You Dance," is "Sister Sookey." Alas for The Turbans, it didn't chart. But it does have a great line: "and that girl she's gone to Egypt." That may be the only "Orientalist" theme in any of The Turbans songs. The group eventually split up, in around 1962.

Love those turbans.