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

Albert Rashid A young Albert Rashid. Southeastern High School, The Aryan Yearbook, 1930, p.61. Courtesy of Ancestry.com  Depending on whether you’re an old timer who purchased your 78 RPM Arabic music discs via mail order in the 1930s from Detroit or you visited one of the brick and mortar locations of Rashid Sales Company on E. 28 th Street in Manhattan or the 191 Atlantic Avenue site in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, or 155 Court Street store in the 1990s and 2000s, Albert Rashid became known for one of three things – Arabic-language film and soundtrack distribution, his Al-Chark or Orient Record label, or his world famous record and music store Rashid Sales Company. By World War II’s end, in Brooklyn, New York, Rashid’s Al-Chark label and Fred Alam’s Alamphon engaged in a friendly but heated competition that rivaled that of Alexander Maloof’ s Washington Street-based Maloof Records  and Albert J. Macksoud’s records in the 1920s. Based on which ...