Johnny Barakat - The Mahrajan's and Surf Guitar's All But Forgotten 1960s Legend
Johnny Barakat - The Mahrajan's and Surf Guitar's All But Forgotten 1960s Legend
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| Johnny R. Barakat. Courtesy of 1964 Chaffey College yearbook, p. 29. |
Readers of our blog will no doubt recognize that many see first generation, US-born Lebanese American Richard “Dick Dale” Mansour as the King of Surf guitar. Dick Dale’s “Misirlou” has been sampled by the Black-Eyed Peas, featured in several films, including Pulp Fiction, and has been covered, revised, remixed, at least two dozen times since first recorded by Tetos Demetriades in 1927. Most notably Anton Abdelahad recorded an Arabic version of the song in 1947 on his self-named Abdelahad Records. Mansour or Dale was, of course, the best known and recognizable, but not the sole Arab American surf guitar player to record in the 1960s. While scanning the Arab American press, we came across at brief article celebrating the musical career possibilities of another surf guitar player named Johnny Barakat.
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| Newspaper clipping from the August 1964, Star News and Pictorial. |
“Band Headed for Stardom to Be Featured at Mahrajan,” read the headline. According to the short story in 1964, Johnny Barakat and the Vestells had recently recorded “Happy Time” and “Long Ride.” Both songs were in heavy rotation on southern California radio stations. Mahrajan organizers in Los Angeles booked Johnny and his band as the American entertainment since younger generations of Arab Americans, sometimes one or two generations US-born, increasingly favored Rock-n-Roll and American Popular music to the old timer music played by the likes of Toufic Barham, Louis Shelby, Najeeb Khoury, and Kazem Razzazan.
This single, solitary story sent us on a search to find more about Barakat – here’s what we found. Brooklyn-born Esma Khouri gave birth to Johnny R. Barakat on 13 October 1942 in Union City, New Jersey. In 1936, she married Damascus-born immigrant James Barakat. James had three children from a previous marriage: Marie, Paul, and Theresa. Johnny became James’ last and youngest child. For a time, James supported his family laboring as a weaver, but by World War II, James was self-employed at Barakat Bros.
By 1949 or 1950, James and Esma moved the family to southern California. With a loan from First National Bank, they purchased a store on 7 February 1950 at 3969 Higuera Street in Los Angeles. Eight years later, the couple bought the spot that would become Barakat’s Grocery.
Like all children his age, Johnny Barakat attended the local elementary and junior high schools and enrolled in Chaffey High School in Ontario, California. At Chaffey, Barakat showed interests in theater arts and music. In 1959, he had a small role in the school production of “Rebel Without a Cause,” adapted from the 1955 film starring James Dean and Natalie Wood. After school, and sometimes on weekends, Johnny worked at his parents’ store at 1383 E. Holt Blvd in Ontario. Johnny started out sweeping, restocking shelves, and eventually, as he got older, ran the cash register and worked alone when his parents had other business to tend to.
Barakat avoided the U.S. Navy as a result of his mother's fear about him getting injured or killed. Perhaps Johnny would have been safer in the U.S.military, even with the nation's increased involvement in Vietnam - especially in the Navy.
A series of life altering events influenced Barakat forever. At approximately 2:10 in the afternoon on Monday, November 7, 1960, Johnny worked alone in the family store when two young men entered. They both pulled guns and demanded money from the register. Barakat asked what was happening and one of the two robbers shot him. The bullet entered Barakat’s left abdomen and exited his back near his spine. The two assailants grabbed several items then fled. Johnny, still conscious, but in agonizing pain, struggled to get to the phone to call for help. He called his mother. Esma Barakat quickly called police and then rushed to the store to be with Johnny. When police arrived they found Johnny behind the counter, on the floor. He had loss blood, but remained conscious. After giving officers a description of his assailants and the car they drove, an ambulance took Barakat to San Antonia Community Hospital. There, he was stabilized, held, and treated. While within a few hours of the shooting, police tracked down, identified, and arrest the men involved – Wayne A. Thornton, 19, and John R. Davis, 21. From his hospital bed, Barakat later identified the two young assailants.
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| Headline from the San Bernardino County Sun, November 10, 1960. Courtesy of Newspapers.com |
Immediately after being shot, Barakat had difficulty with movement below his neck and experienced complete paralysis from his waist down. Intensive rehabilitation permitted Barakat to be able to walk if assisted by a cane, crutches, walker, or other device. Community members who read accounts of the tragic events donated to help Barakat’s family pay the hospital expensive. Approximately, $588 in cash donations helped pay for Barakat’s ongoing treatment at San Antonio Hospital. Any remaining funds, the Barakats asked to be applied to the medical bills of youth at Huntington Hospital or the Casa Colina rehabilitation Center. Barakat soon underwent more intensive therapy at Casa Colina. Representatives from local businesses such as Ralph’s Market awarded Johnny a volume of dictionaries as his rehab continued.
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| Ad featuring Johnny Barakat and the Vestells at the Rainbow Gardens. The Progress Bulletin, July 3, 1963. Courtesy of Newspapers.com. |
Within a year’s time, Barakat enrolled in Chaffey College near Alta Loma, California, and formed band called Johnny and the Mystics. Johnny resumed his interests in the arts and participated in the college’s three-day Public Arts Festival. While attending Chaffey College Johnny learned to hone his skills on piano and guitar. Playing his guitar and piano became a part of his physical therapy. He dissolved the Mystics and within a year became a member of the Vestells, a local group that hoped to get a recording contract if they won an up-and-coming talent competition. Initially, the band was seven members, but had shrunken six. According to one account by Robert J. Dailey, and repeated in several sources, Johnny Barakat became friends with Dick Dale's father. The two were fluent and bi-lingual in Arabic and English and conversed regularly, while Dick Dale only spoke English. Johnny, still a virtual unknown, accompanied Dick Dale on stage at one gig. This same account suggests Barakat was supposed to record "Miserlou" first, influenced Dick Dale's double-picking style, and introduced Dale to playing the electric guitar like Middle Eastern musicians played the oud. This account even goes as far as to claim Barakat introduced Dale to the the song "Miserlou." This is likely an exaggeration played up by Barakat in hindsight.
By February, 1963, Johnny Barakat and the Vestells signed with SAM Record Company and recorded “Twitchin’” and “The Jitters.” Johnny and the Vestells regularly played at the Rainbow Gardens Ballroom beginning in Summer 1963. That fall, Johnny Barakat and the Vestells recorded at Pal Recording Studio in Cucamonga. A background vocalist on the single “Jezebel” was an up-and-coming musician of Arab descent named Frank Zappa (Barakat and Frank Zappa's first wife once worked together at a Bank of America branch). Johnny and the Vestells also jammed at the Tri-Hi-Y clubs weekly post-game dance at the YMCA in Pomona and announced that after some time in the studio they were releasing a new single “Happy Times” backed by “The Long Ride” in February 1964. One attendee described these gigs as “wild and out of control.” Fights between young toughs at the Y dances forced organizers to empty the joint. The band’s bookings increased and they played the “Wilshire Ebell Theater, the Hollywood Country Club, the Cinnamon Cinder, the Riverside Municipal Auditorium, the Sahara Teen Club, and the Oasis Youth Center.” The week-long spring vacation/ Easter Week program at the San Fernando Valley Teen Center opened with Johnny Barakat and the Vestells. From April 1964 to Labor Day 1964, the band headlined on Friday nights at the Palladium Roller Skating Rink in Pomona.
That so-called surf guitarists like Barakat played at mahrajan, on local radio, at skating rinks, and became associated with places like San Bernardino, Huntington Beach, Redondo Beach, Santa Monica, and Venice Beach, eventually leading to the concept of sidewalk-surfing or skateboarding in the early 1960s in southern California. Within a few years, sidewalk-surfing stories exponentially grew from coverage solely in California to the midwest and east coast.
West Coast mahrajan could attract the likes of Kahraman, Amer Kadaj, Eddie Kochak, Toufik Barham, and others who recorded on Alamphon, Arabphon, and Al-Chark, but the western circuit included musicians we had not heard of before. There was Louis Shelby, Najeeb Khoury, Kazem Razzazan, Abdel Sirhan, and Chick Kahla.
The Palladium house band deal and Barakat's brief partnership with Johnny Sudetta aka Johnny Fortune began and ended in the year's time that was 1965 and 1966. Barakat's music career went no further. He played for himself and kept up with the guitar, but he returned to school, completed his studies at Chaffey College and enrolled and graduated from Cal Poly along with 207 other graduates in 1969. By this time the musical careers of two of his old acquaintances - Dick Dale and Frank Zappa - had taken off.
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| Another ad for Barakat and the Vestells,The Progress Bulletin. July 2, 1964. Courtesy of Newspapers.com |
The long-term effects of the shooting meant that Johnny walked with two canes or other assistive tool for the remainder of his life. He spent most of his time in a wheelchair. This did not prevent Barakat from finding love. He dated, and then on 11 November 1973, he married Eileen Bixler Jabro in Orange, California. Johnny tried his hand at several careers including banking and store management and by 1974 he’d risen to top salesman for Herbert Hawkins Realtors in Ontario, California.
Johhny Barakat and the Vestells 45 rpm record. One side of their only 1960s release.
Most of remainder of Johnny Barakat’s life kept in out of the media spotlight. Few people except a few die-hard music and surf guitar fans remember Johnny Barakat’s singles from the 1960s. Several moves in the 1980s and 1990s still found him in Ontario, California.
On Friday, 21 April 2000, Johnny Barakat died. His recovery from when he’d been shot was nothing short of miraculous. His surf guitar rifts have earned him comparisons surf-rock King Dick Dale. Over the years, several of Johnny Barakat's singles have been reproduced and re-issued for release. In 1996, a few years before Johnny’s death, AVI Records released Rare Surf Volume 3 – Johnny Fortune & Johnny Barakat and the Vestells. The project included ten unreleased songs that had been recorded in the 1960s by Johnny Barakat and the Vestells. Listening to the material, one may certainly hear why Barakat deserves mention in the annals of surf guitar history. His rendition of "The Wedge" when compared to Dick Dale's version of the same tune gives listeners a better sense of how much Barakat's skill and potential were underrated.
By the 1950s, the Mahrajan had long begun the tradition of having more traditional Arabic entertainment and American entertainment for younger event goers. Many, but not all the bands or ensembles booked, had Lebanese, Syrian, or Egyptian ancestry. After hearing a few of Barakat’s guitar licks, maybe you, too, will take notice of the legacy of one of surf music’s lesser-known icons.
Richard M. Breaux
© Midwest Mahjar
always great stuff thanks
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