Louis Shelby: A 78 Record, Two Nightclubs, and the Shelby Legacy in Los Angeles
Louis Shelby: A 78 Record, Two Nightclubs, and the Shelby Legacy in Los Angeles Louis Shelby, c.1964. At Midwest Mahjar we’ve written about both the Boston and Los Angeles Arab American music scene. We’ve explored the 78 RPM Arabic music merchant Gabriel S. Maloof , Anton Abdelahad , Ramza Abdelahad , Tony Tawa , Ronnie Kirby , and a host of other Arab Americans in Beantown’s late nineteenth and early twentieth century history. Two thousand nine hundred eighty-two miles across the United States pioneering Arab American musicians like Constantine Souss , Andrew Mekanna , Hanna Wakeen , Joseph Moshay , Johnny Barakat , Elias Abourjaily , and Saadoun Al-Bayati recorded on a host of west coast record labels and travelled the West Coast mahrajan circuit. Syrians in Massachusetts held one of the earliest mahrajans in the United States in 1932. Within three years, the Brockton, Massachusetts mahrajan drew 6000 attendees to a weekend dance, music, socializing, match-mak...