What’s in a Name? In Search of John Hidar, Derbecki Player

A rare photo of John Hidar. Caravan newspaper. Newspapers.com

Ever since we researched, composed, and posted the story of Jeanette Harouni, aka Hanan or Hanaan, in 2019, we have known the name John Hidar. According to the album credits on Hanan’s The Arabian Nightingale released in 1959, John Hidar [spelled Hyder] sat in as one of two featured drummers along with Ezra James as Hanan’s records transitioned from recording on 78 rpm to 33 1/3 LP. Other musicians in her ensemble included Philip Solomon, Jack Ghanaim, Ray Beilouny, Hakki Obadia, and the great oudist Wadih El-Safi. Hidar’s name rarely, if at all, comes up in discussions about Arab American music, yet his appearance of The Arabian Nightingale was not his only recorded performance. To be sure, in 1962, when Lila Stephan’s Lila: A Thousand and One Nights hit record stores, it too, included John “Hidar” on derbecki joined by Mohammed El-Akkad on kanun, Jack Ghanaim and Joe Budway on oud, Eddie Kochak on percussion, Sam Fackre on tambourine, and Hakki Obedia and Naim Karacand on violin. Searching for Hidar became difficult as various spellings of Hyder, Hider, Hydar, and Hidar might throw even the most experienced researchers for a loop. It turns out, the family surname was actually Abouhedar!

 

John Abouhedar entered this world 29 November 1929 in Manhattan, New York City, the son and fifth child of Anton Abouhedar and Nazira Mazaiek. Anton or Anthony immigrated to the United States around 1910 from Jerusalem, found work as an electrician and machinist, and first settled the family at 17 Rector Street in the heart of NYC’s Little Syria. The Abouhedars leased a place just around the corner from A.J. Macksoud’s record shop, which at the time imported the latest tunes from Egypt and Greater Syria on 78 rpm shellac discs. In the household in 1920 were Anton, Nazira, Anton’s widowed mother Mary, the Abouhedar’s young daughter’s Josephine and Violet. By this time, Anton and Nazira had received the naturalized citizenship but Mary had not. Josephine and Violet, as would be the case with all the Abouhedar children,  held citizenship by birth.

 

Against a backdrop of increasingly restrictive immigration laws and urban renewal projects, Manhattan’s Little Syria slowly dissolved, scattering many of its residents throughout the eastern seaboard and sending hundreds to neighboring boroughs. Following the outward migration across the Brooklyn Bridge, to make way for the Battery Tunnel and into Bay Ridge neighborhood in Brooklyn, by 1940 the Hidar’s took up their new residence at 139 Amity Street where rent was $35 per month. The Bay Ridge area served as the center of Brooklyn’s Little Syria.

 

Not old enough to require registration for the draft and too young to fight in World War II, Johnny as he was listed in the 1940 US Census attending high school and his older sisters lived at home. Interestingly, the entire Abouhedar family went to court in New York City in 1947 to have their surname officially changed from Abouhedar to Hidar.  John began playing derbecki around this time and in January 1954, he joined Leon Aboud, John Nashar, and Ray Beilouny as musical accompaniment for the play “One Thousand and Second Night.” In the same month, he played alongside Elie Baida, Naim Karacand, Louis Kawam, Abe Messadi, and Al Miller at a hafla sponsor by the Holy Name Society of the Church of the Virgin Mary in Brooklyn. Within four of this time, John Hidar registered for the U.S. military.  One of his last performances before enlistment, Hidar had the great fortune to join Sami el Shawa and Naif Agby at Caravan editor’s George Deb’s home. Such an honor stood out as one of the highlights of young Johnny Hidar’s career. 

 

Stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas in 1954, John came home on nearly every leave he could get. Sometimes he went out on the road and performed during leave. His parents now resided at 212 Clinton Street in Brooklyn. In October 1954, for example he, joined Little Sami, Naif Agby, Ray Beilouny, and dancer Marie Louise Tashji on the Nancy Craig TV Show on New York’s Channel 7. The Caravan gave updates on Hidar and other young Arab Americans serving in the United States armed forces in the mid-1950s.  With an honorable discharge by 1957, Hidar returned to Brooklyn and resumed playing derbecki at weekend-haflat and mahrajanat. On 5 May 1957, John Hidar wed Louise Hallack in a ceremony at Our Lady of Lebanon Church in Brooklyn. Eddie Kochak played at their reception. 

 

Hidar played fewer gigs after his marriage to Louise Hallack. In fact, his absence from haflat and mahrajanat line-ups is noticeable to anyone attempting to determine his whereabouts in 1957, 1958, and 1959.  Minus his appearance on Hanan’s 1959 The Arabian Nightingale he received little press coverage. Hidar lived between Kingston, New York, and Brooklyn in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

 

John Hidar re-emerges in 1960 and 1961 with engagements at joint Saint Nicholas Cathedral and Saint Mary’s Acolytes SOYO hafla on 23 January 1960. Hakki Obadia, Emil Kasses, Ray Beilouny, and John Hidar provided the Saturday night entertainment during the convention’s midway. To our knowledge, Hidar played one other event that year when he joined Hanan, Jack Ghanaim, Naim Karacand, and Eddie Kochack at the Green Grove Manor in West End, Long Branch, New Jersey, on 14 August 1960.  The Gala Hafla, featuring Hanan and Elias Abourjaily, along with Hakki Obadia, and Jack Ghanaim at Saint Mary’s Church Hall 10 June 1961 is possibly one of his last advertised in-person appearances. 

Hanan &  Ensemble, "The Arabian Nightingale," (Period, 1959). Hanan's first US LP located and purchased in Adelphia, New Jersey (one hour west of Asbury Park). Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection.

 

Soon John and Louise celebrated the birth their baby boy Paul. Life seemed good for the young family for a brief period, but soon John divorced Louise and left her to raise their son on her own. John Hidar’s departure left Paul with few and faint memories of his father. Of the sources we have documenting Brooklyn’s or the East Coast’s haflat and mahrajanat scene in the early 1960s, none list John Hidar after 1961. In fact, John vanishes from publicly available sources until 1968, when he married Anna Loiselle in Manhattan. 

Sam Fackre played riqq on Lila Stephan's LP, Lila-A Thousand and One Nights. https://soundcloud.com/user-369741458/lila-stephan-teer-teer-i-fly-to-my-love-812-cleopatra

 

We can say with any certainty, why John Hidar seemed to vanish into thin air. John Hidar’s father passed 5 January 1967 and his mother, Nazira, died 2 October 1967. They are both buried in Saint Charles Cemetery in East Farmingdale, New York. During a difficult-to-determine date, John and Anna L. Hidar lived in Kingston, New York. In 1977 and 1996, John A. Hidar lived on Colonial Road at 7043 in Brooklyn. Was he still married to Anna at this point? Had he divorced and left her, too? We just don’t know. Neither do we know what Hidar did for a living. All we know for certain, is that on 12 October 1999 in Brooklyn, New York, John A. Hidar died. We can find no obituary but we know he was laid to rest, probably by his three surviving sisters, in Saint Charles Cemetery in East Farmingdale, New York.

Richard M. Breaux

© Midwest Mahjar