Egypt of the North
Posted by Chris on August 24, 2006 at 9:53 pm
…is what one piece of tourist literature calls the Orkneys, mostly because there are a lot of ancient dead people buried there. In Kirkwall there is more pebbledash than I have ever seen anywhere, I’m suprised the wind didn’t become charged with static electricity like a divine fist. What else to say about the Orkneys, it’s over a month since I was there now… The anarchist Cinefuegos Press based itself on the island of Sanday (a windbeaten rock of 500 souls) between 1974 and 1982 proving that things could be moved around between obscure places before the invention of the internet. Apparently in winter when the wind is strongest you have to roll down the window to be able to open the car door. There’s also a fantastic record shop called ‘Grooves’ where you can find the latest re-issues of 70s yakuza films and Topic’s excellent ‘Women of Egypt’ CD. This release contains about a dozen 78s recorded in the late 20s by who in retrospect could be called Oum Khaltoum and her rivals.
In Egypt women began to appear on stage in public more frequently after the 1890s as certain forms of music became the object of public spectacle. Where the ‘awalim (women’s song) had traditionally been performed for women in the gender-segregated environment of wedding celebrations, the construction of public theatres such as the Cairo Opera House in 1869 created new spaces that had to be filled with something. The theatre going experience was still gender segregated (if women were permitted at all), but being able to hear women’s voices on record must have changed the way people understood gender and performance, the sort of places it was sited and who had control over it (US record companies released the majority of the tracks on this release). This one’s Ratibah Ahmed with Zakariyyah Ahmed its called ‘Quabadan Quabadan’ which is translated with admirable invention as ‘Never Never Mr Ticket Inspector, Do Not Take From This Lady The Ticket’s Fee’:
Ratibah Ahmed
Ratibah Ahmed & Zakariyyah Ahmed - Qabadan Qabadan 9.6mb
Apparently a lot of the singers in this compliation were quite competitive, routinely bitching each other out in the Egyptian gossip press or pressuring journalists to act as their proxy. Oum Khaltoum emerged the queen bee and dominated Egyptian music for the next 40 years. She doesn’t look that that hard in this picture, but I still wouldn’t want to cross her, I reckon she could take Rikishi easy.
Oum Khaltoum 1928
Oum Khaltoum - Qal eh ya hilif 9.7mb
This last one’s by Aquilah Rateb. It’s called ‘Har al-gawa zad nuhuli’ which is translated as ‘the heat of passionate love has increased my wasting away’. She was primarily a film star and was active a bit later than the others here, making her first film in 1936.
Aqilah Rateb
Aquilah Rateb - Har al-gawa zad nuhuli 3.9mb
The record is highly recommended - you can get it at all the usual online places.
