Ronnie Kirby: Boston Metro’s Go to Derbake Player
Ronnie Kirby: Boston Metro’s Go to Derbake Player Ronnie Kirby. From the back cover of Anton Abdelahad's Middle East Fantasy LP. Courtesy of Richard Breaux collection. At Midwest Mahjar we have been blogging about Arab American music for almost five years and we have featured very few percussionists, especially, derbake, doumbek, or drum players. The most well-known drummers to come to mind were Mike Hamway and Eddie Kochak . Anne K. Rassmussen’s work reveals that mahrajan and hafla organizers paid drummers or derbake players least of all. Yet the rhythmic, pulsating, thump of the derbake became a mainstay in the post-acoustic, electrical recording era Arab American music. During the early years of the mahrajan and hafla circuit, members of a traveling singer’s ensemble might come from a local community; however, over the years singers like Hanan and Tony Abdelahad demanded their own ensembles and accompanists travel along with them on the mahrajan circuit. Ronnie Kirby