From Mahjar to Mahrajan to Mainstream: Nick Anthony's Journey from Lead Singer to Solo Artist

 

From Mahjar to Mahrajan to Mainstream: 

Nick Anthony's Journey from Lead Singer to Solo Artist



Nick Anthony c. 1962.

Ever since we came across his image and name in an advertisement for a Gala Hafla in a 1957 Caravan newspaper, we’ve been intrigued by the story of Nick Anthony. In the era of hair grease, pompadour hairstyles, and the popularization of rock music, Nick Anthony or Nick Anthony and the Starfires started their career as the "American entertainment" at Arab American haflat and mahrajanat. 

An important feature of the hafla and mahrajan emerged in the 1950s as the U.S.-born children and grandchildren of Arabic-speaking immigrants attended cultural celebrations and events with their elders but spoke and understood less and less Arabic. Organizers of hafla and mahrajan began dividing the entertainment between acts who sang in Arabic and those that performed in English. These single-day and weekend-long festivals signaled a way to hold onto certain cultural traditions while simultaneously acknowledging that other practices were fading away. Singers like Paul Anka, Virginia Atter, Albert Elias, Howard Bader, Nick Anthony, and others symbolized this transition.


Born Nicholas Anthony Mansoor in October 1937, Nick Anthony was born in San Pedro Sula or Tela in northwest Honduras to Lufti and Victoria Gabrie Mansoor, immigrants to the United States in 1944. Lufti originally travelled to Honduras from Jerusalem, Palestine, where he was born in 1907. One year younger, Victoria’s place of birth remains unclear although it appears to have been Honduras. Lufti represented the typical Arab immigrant to Honduras - Palestinian and lived in San Pedro Sula. Approximately 25,000 people of Arab descent lived in San Pedro Sula in 1930 and some 40,000 lived there by the time Nick Anthony came along. In the early 1940s, Lufti, Victoria, and their children (Victor, Lufti, Jr., Anthony, Nicholas, John, and Richard) moved between Honduras, New Orleans, Florida, and New York.  The Mansoors listed 6615 North Peters Street in the Crescent City as their address. From there, Tampa became the next city the family settled. Lufti worked for a relative who sold cigars wholesale. The Mansoors and their minor children became naturalized United States citizens 5 December 1950 and the family settled in at 309 E 16th Street in Brooklyn, New York.


The Mansoor boys came of age in post-World War II Brooklyn, as their father worked as an importer and exporter who was in and out of the country on business quite frequently. Lufti Junior enlisted in the US Army for the Korean War on 18 November 1952 when he was 21 and served until honorably discharged in 1954, a bronze star awardee. After serving in the military, Lufti Junior joined his father in the import/export business. Anthony or Tony, as he was known, also joined the military and served as a paratrooper. Nicholas began his career by singing at parties when he was eight. Encouraged by his parents, he took singing lessons with vocalist Ralph Gerard at Carnegie Hall. Nick attended P.S. 139 just four blocks away from home for elementary school. In high school at Saint Leonard's Academy, Nicholas and some friends started a rock n' roll band called The Starfires with Nick as the lead singer.


28 August 1958. Caravan. Courtesy of Newspapers.com


First, WINN radio disc jockey Paul Sherman discovered, and later managed Nicholas and his group. That we know, the Starfires never put music to shellac or vinyl, but Nicholas Mansoor, as Nick Anthony did. Around 1956, Don Costa, ABC-Paramount Records A& R man, arranger, and producer, who also signed and recorded Lebanese-Canadian Paul Anka the same year, encouraged Nick Anthony to sign with the recently established label. Into the studio Nick Anthony went and recorded “Jack Pot” and “Sugar Baby”in 1957. One year later, Anthony released “You’re Real Keen, Jelly Bean” and “More Than Ever.” Olga "Kahraman" Agby signed with ABC-Paramount and recorded her Flames of Araby album in 1958 also. In 1959, ABC-Paramount dropped Nick Anthony’s “My Baby’s Gone” and “Forbidden Love” (co-written by Nick's mother). Anthony’s songs were released on the better-known ABC-Paramount and the budget label Cindy. Finally, in 1961 ABC-Paramount issued “That’s My Desire” and “Just a Fool.” This string of hits catapulted Anthony’s career beyond its initial Arab American fan base.



Nick Anthony "Jack Pot" - https://youtu.be/tdxccT6pfmo
Nick Anthony "Sugar Baby" - https://youtu.be/pg9XL46aI-c


Marketed as rock billy or rockabilly, listeners can't help but hear the synthesis of Elvis-influenced rock and roll and hillbilly. This genre of music embodies Nick Anthony's early recorded career, although he'd settle into what the press labeled Sinatra-styled music. 


Nineteen fifty-eight proved a stellar year for Nick Anthony. There were television, radio, and haflat appearances bringing Anthony into contact with a who’s who of Arab American music. The 29 June 1958 Gala Hafla at the Hotel Saint George in Brooklyn included Mohamed el Bakkar, Eddie Kochak, Kahraman, Hanan, Karawan, George Hamway, Jack Ganaim, Naim Karacand, and Danny Thomas. Proceeds from the hafla went to Danny Thomas’ Saint Jude Hospital Fund. As summer came to a close, Nick Anthony was the featured act at the Labor Day Mahrajan in Tannerville, New York, that included Kahraman, Naim Karacand, Mike Hamway, and Anton Abdelahad. Organizers brought in the veteran singers for the older crowd, while the younger attendees came to see Nick Anthony & the Starfires.


Ad for the Gala Hafli, 19 June 1958, Caravan. Courtesy of Newspapers.com

Tragedy struck the Mansoor family in 1959 when Nick’s older brother, Victor Monsoor, drowned at a beach in Tela, Honduras. Victor had travelled back to Honduras because his mother’s family resided there. It was Victoria Mansoor’s brother, Julio Gabrie, who claimed the body and coordinated funeral and burial arrangements with the family. The family was devastated and Victor’s death had a tremendous toll on the family. The total impact on Nick Anthony’s career remains unclear.


Nick made several radio and television appearances in 1959. His records received regular play on WMGM and Anthony performed on "Joe Franklin's Memory Lane." He toured the United States and Canada and owned his own record label "CARAVAN" for a short period. He headlined at the Teen Record Hop in Passaic, New Jersey hosted the Passaic Ballroom on May 29, 1959.



Nick Anthony "Forbidden Love," https://youtu.be/B5EylPQExYc
Nick Anthony "My Baby's Gone," https://youtu.be/yx_6XOEfcfo
Nick Anthony "You're Real Keen, Jelly Bean," https://youtu.be/T56wzp4D9cI
Nick Anthony "More Than Ever," https://youtu.be/_RVE1fmeHBI


Next the military came calling and Nick Anthony served in the armed services before he returned to the stage.  According to some sources, Nick spent 1960 to 1963 (or late 1959-late 1962) in the U.S. Army’s Intelligence Corps in Dugway, Utah. The Dugway Proving Ground established in 1942, reopened in 1954 as a chemical, biological, and radiological weapons facility and was home to Project Bellwether in the early 1960s. Interestingly, the Army allowed Nick Anthony leave time to perform in Salt Lake City at the Glenwood Lounge in September 1962. After discharge, Nick and Jerome Richey spent time in Hollywood mingling with the likes of Eddie Albert, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Caesar Romero, and Ann Davis. He also signed a record contact to work with Danny Thomas, who he’d first met at the Brooklyn Gala Hafla back in 1958. After approximately three years with the Intelligence Corps, Anthony played the Stardust Room of Rocket Bowl in North Hollywood in 1964 backed by Oland Dupri, Lorin Newkirk, and Jerry Williams.


Ad for Nick Anthony and his Trio in Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara News Press 3 April 1964. Courtesy of Newspapers.com. 

For the next ten years, Nick Anthony performed at several Santa Barbara clubs and opened, then sold his own night club. In early 1964, he and his trio first played the Falcon Lounge across from the Bird Refuge. This stint lasted from January to May. Next there was El Paseo Restaurant at 813 Anacapa Street. The Galleon Room at the Orchid Bowl on Highway 101 became Anthony's musical home for much of 1965. Casa Da Pra formerly the King's Supper Club followed later in the year. Then in March 1966, Nick and his first cousin Tony bought a spot at 10 East Cota Street and opened Ali Baba. At first, it was a respectable establishment with Middle Eastern dancers like Maya Medwar. The Middle Eastern cuisine was authentic. Within nine months, things went sideways. Middle Eastern dancers were replaced with topless dancers, snake dancers, drag performers, and an assorted group of entertainers. Customers began to get more rowdy and belligerent. Police targeted and raided the place. By November 1969, it was just too much and Nick and Tony sold the Ali Baba to Frank J. Long. Nick returned to performing in restaurants and hotel lounges like La Mancha Dining Room at the Holiday Inn of Santa Barbara fronting the Art Lyon Trio.


Ad for Ali Baba club owned by Nick and Tony Mansoor.  Santa Barbara News Press 12 May 1966. Courtesy of Newspapers.com

As Nick Anthony tried his hand at club ownership, he also married and had two children. On 26 September 1965, Nicholas Mansoor, 27, wed Linda Gay Herring, 25 in Santa Barbara.  Within two years, a daughter, Nicolette, was born to the Mansoors in August 1967. Linda and Nicholas had a second child, this time a son named Nicholas, in April 1969. By 1970, Linda petitioned the court to dissolve her marriage to Nicholas. The coupled seemed to remain legally married through moves to Ruston, Louisiana and Texas and divorced in Dallas, Texas in 1995.


In addition to his career in music, under his birth name, Nicholas Mansoor co-owned a leather works shop in Cancun, Mexico with his mother Victoria. In the 1970s and 1980s, he also worked as an insurance salesman for Reserve Life Insurance Company, and a property manager of several rental facilities in Ruston, Louisiana,  Leflore County, Mississippi, and Texarkana, including the Whispering Pines Trailer Park. Through it all and for most of the 1990s, Mansoor maintained a base in Dallas. 


The millennium meant relocation to Las Vegas, Nevada. Close to retirement age, Nicholas Mansoor only performed at special events for friends and family but his years as a recording artist and public performer were behind him. Today,  Mansoor is 88 years old. His children have their own careers and their own children. 


Neither Nick nor any of the other members of his band ever reached superstardom.  Anthony made several partially-successful attempts in the 1960s and 1970s to become a pop star. Despite the use of the same stage name, Nicholas Mansoor was not the "Nick Anthony" who released the "High Voltage" LP in 1970 or the pianist who performed in Brooklyn in the 1980s or southern California in the 1990s. 


Nick Anthony is a legend in his own right. His life symbolizes the complex relationship between Bilad al-Sham and the Central American, and US mahjari communities. It represents shifting generational identities and redefining how we understand the process of becoming American. Elias Abourjaily and John Fayad were Arab American with similar connections to Honduras and the United States. More than anything, Nick Anthony's record capture for us how the sounds of the mahrajan and hafla was changing for a generation of youth coming of age in the 1950s and 1960s. 



Special thanks to Nicolette L.





Richard M. Breaux


©Midwest Mahjar








Location: La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA La Crosse, WI, USA

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