Midwest Mahjar: The Recorded Sounds of the Arabic-Speaking Diaspora in the United States at 78 RPM

Philip Solomon: New England's Eminent Arab American Music Violin Virtuoso Philip F. Solomon from an Alamphon Records Sleeve. Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collections.     Approximately six miles northeast of Providence, Rhode Island, where the Seekonk and Blackstone Rivers meet, rests the city of Pawtucket. Its population in 2020 was just over 75,000, but in the 1950s and 1960s when Pawtucket reached its population peak nearly 81.000 people resided there. At the same moment in the 1950s and 1960s, Pawtucket played host to the largest annual mahrajan on the East Coast – a multi-day music and cultural festival that brought Arab America’s biggest and brightest musical talent for a weekend of food, fun, dance, conversation, and cross generational socializing.   Those musicians who played at the Pawtucket mahrajan over the years were a who’s who of middle period Arab American performing artists – Hanan , Kahraman, Naif Agby , Tony Abdelahad , Mohammed El-Akkad , Amer & Sa...

Anton Abdelahad: Music of the American-born Mahjar circa 1949. Abdelahad's Song Book . Few Arab American musicians enjoyed the productivity and longevity of singer and ‘oud player, Anton “Tony” Abdelahad (1915-1995).  His live and recorded songs became a staple at “mahrajans” and “haflas” from the 1940s to the 1980s. Ramza Bergoot and Assad Abdelahad immigrated to the United States on 4 September 1904 and 1902, respectively. On 25 November 1905, the couple married in Boston, Massachusetts and settled among a group of Lebanese and Syrians around Hudson Street, Harrison, and Tyler in the heart of Boston just blocks from the Chinese immigrant enclave.  The Abdelahad’s had three children: Evelyn in 1908, Anton in 1915, and Charles in 1918. Anton “Tony” Abdelahad was born 25 July in 1915 to Syrian immigrant parents, Assad and Ramza Abdelahad, in Boston, Massachusetts. Tony Abdelahad heard an earlier generation of Arab and Arab American musicians on 78 rpm records h...