Abdel Halim Hafez: S/D & so on

Fatet Ganbena
Resala
Mawoud
Hawel Taftekerni

Kariaat el fingan (with some reservations)

Definitely love: Fi youm, fi shahar, fi sina (في يوم في شهر في سنة)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuQwqmhggBg

I was listening to Risala Min Taht Al-maa (رسالة من تحت الماء) and noticed that he changes Qabbani's lyrics a bit. The original poem goes like:
If you are my friend, help me leave you
If you are my love, help me be healed of you...

He changes it to:
If you are my love, help me leave you
If you are my doctor, help me be healed of you...

It's interesting the change he made, it makes more logical sense now, the link between doctor and healing, but it's definitely less poetic and romantic. Still a great song. I especially love when he sings the last few lines of the poem: aghrag, aghraq (I drown, I drown).

I forgot I had even started this thread.

I don't know this song. There's still a lot of Abdel Halim Hafez I haven't heard, I suspect. Some of the rigid mannerisms of Egyptian music at this point are a turn off to me (e.g., and in particular, the violin accents for each line sung). On the other hand, Abdel Halim's voice is strikingly beautiful here.

Also, sorry but his conducting schtick is corny. :)

He performed really good covers of Daret El Ayam and Zekrayat. I think I may have only heard a fragment of at least one of them though.

I think I like his "Daret El Ayam" as much as the original (although I it's not one of my favorite Oum Kalthoum songs to begin with).

I don't think it's even available on CD, either of those songs. I didn't see them the last time I checked. Maybe there's some hassle with Oum Kalthoum's estate, which I imagine would be pretty hardcore about intellectual property rights.

Even his version gets bogged in the waltz-like passage. Sometimes I really think Mohammed Abdel Wahab killed Egyptian music, particularly with all his west-struckness. (I reallize these are the same opinions I have expressed repeatedly.)

This Abdel Halim Zekrayat is nothing like I remembered it. Kind of crazy over-the-top arrangement with choral accompaniment. Is it even the same song? And at one point he starts talking in English: "Egyptians, how dare you beat [?] them. Don't you know them?" I have no idea what the context is for any of this.

Oh I definitely agree about his conducting shtick, it is pretty awful, I just posted that version as it's one of the better ones on youtube.

As for 'Daarat al-Ayam' (و دارت الأيام), I actually think it's a bad song with even worse interpretations, it's always done way heavier and slower than I think is necessary.

Also, do you have a link to the version you're talking about. As you of course know, the recording lineage of Arabic music is completely unorganized.

I don't have a link for it, I just have an mp3 copy of dubious origin (but the sound is surprisingly good, considering).

(Check your email.)

Here's some context on Zikrayat (ذكريات), as far as I know and from stuff on the web. It was written by Ahmed Shafeeq Kamil (أحمد شفيق كامل), an Egyptian poet who also wrote Enta Umri (أنت عمري). Zikrayat was written for Abdel Halim Hafez to commemorate the July Revolution in Egypt and the Egyptian "victory" in the Suez crisis. Just one line of the lyrics celebrating Egypt: "Our planes and their planes (the British) fought in the sky, we ensnarled them, we aggravated them, we made them crash." The portion you're talking about where he speaks in English, he poses the question "How do we beat them (the English and Europeans)" in English and then in Arabic, and then he provides the answer: "We put to work our little hearts in answering the question" and then later describes how Egyptian freedom came about because the people came together. Obviously this song is pretty heavy in Nasser-era calls for solidarity and social cohesion in order to repel the "red-faced English."

I still sometimes wonder if Abdel Wahab realized how ridiculous some of the organ sounds at the beginning of Fatet Ganbena sound. He had to realize they were kind of corny and outrageous they were, yes? Maybe? And then the same composition has completely sublime ney (or some other kind of flute) passages, and so on.

(Great posts by Ivor on this thread.)

Hawel Taftekerni

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVbnyD4lHvM