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

Wadeeh Bagdady Photograph of Wadeeh Bagdady from the Arabphon Catalogue. Courtesy of William Albert Ansara.  In 1920 New York, as the Victor Talking Machine Company and Columbia Phonograph Company moved out of the Arabic-language record market, long-time phonograph dealer turned record producer A.J. Macksoud and composer and music teacher Alexander Maloof created their respective namesake record labels that all but cornered the market on Syrian/Lebanese phonograph records for the next ten to fifteen years. Both Abraham J. Macksoud and Alexander Maloof operated their businesses in New York’s Little Syria, which centered around Washington Street from Battery Park to Rector Street. Singer and oudist Louis Wardiny and vocalist Salim Doumani cut a majority’s share of the known songs on both the Macksoud and Maloof labels. Both companies employed violin virtuoso Naim Karacand in their labels’ ensembles and Karacand figured prominently on a number of bo...

George F. Berbari (Musician, Oud) George F. Berbari, photograph courtesy of David Bailey (George's grandson) Just ten miles north of Beirut, in the coastal city of Sahel Alma, near Jounieh, Fayad and Margo Berbari witnessed the birth of one of at least four of their children, George F. Berbari , in 1892 (although his WWI Draft card reads 1896). Silk production and juice production fueled the city’s economy in the late nineteenth century and it was one of the earliest cities in Greater Syria to commercially produce ice. Fayad Berbari was a silk merchant. Competition in the global silk markets drove down the value of Ottoman-produced silk and this combined with population growth and changes in conscription and tax policies served as a catalyst to Greater Syrian emigration. George was a Maronite cantor for a bishop in Lebanon in his youth. By 1910, George and his cousin Manuel followed George's brother Nicholas to the United States. George was one o...