George A. Khoury: A Southern-Born Arab American, His Record Labels' Cajun, Country, and Rhythm & Blues History, and the Contested Authorship of Song 

Jimmie Newman and His Rhythm Boys, "Darling," on Khoury's Bayou Hits Recordings label. Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection.
https://youtu.be/pmn3gR4IKcQ

Why on earth is a story about a well-known Cajun Music record label appearing on a blog about 78-RPM Arab American music and music of the Greater Syrian diaspora? Isn’t this post grossly out of place? What do we make of the idea that this label existed contemporary to the time of Arabphon, Alamphon, and Al-Chark, but neither included any Arab-language music, nor seems to have appeared in the Arab American press? The truth is, like much of the Arab American music and record labels we’ve covered so far, the story is complicated and yet intriguing.

The information on the label has always struck us as a bit curious, “Khoury’s Bayou Hits Recordings.”  Collectors of early Creole and Cajun records will tell you that in the 1950s, some of the best Cajun recordings could be found on the Khoury’s label. Perplexing to us was the surname which could be Hindi or Arabic came to be associated with musicians like Lawrence Walker, Jimmie Choates, Horace LeBleau, and Crawford Vincent. The surname Khoury, Corey, Curry, Gordy, Kouri, Kury, or any of the various spellings we’ve encountered were clearly anglicized variants of the same name. Why or how did a 1950s Cajun label located in Lake Charles, Louisiana, come to be called “Khoury’s Bayou Hits Recordings”? Was this a twist of fate, where a French-speaking immigrant from the French Mandate territories of the former Ottoman Empire made their way to Louisiana, fell in love with the sound of Cajun music and recorded it? Not quite.

The story of George A. Khoury and his “Khoury’s Bayou Hits Recordings” and Lyric label begins around 17 July 1908. On this date, George Khoury was born the second child of Syrian/Lebanese immigrants Albert and Sarah Khoury in Lake Charles, Calcasieu Parrish, Louisiana. According to the earliest known documents, Albert Khoury and Sarah Isaacs married in 1892 in Syria. Albert, when eight years old, had already managed to come to the United States with his relatives a few years after the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. Albert returned to Greater Syria where he met and married Sarah. Within two years of the wedding, Sarah gave birth to her first child and only daughter, Jamille Khoury.

The reverberating effects of the collapse of Greater Syria’s economic markets, growing political instability, and the prospect of economic opportunity in the United States propelled the Khoury’s – Albert, Sarah, and Jamille to immigrate in 1903. Albert and the family settled in Lake Charles, Louisiana and he labored as a pack-peddler to earn a living and support his family. At the time, other Syrian immigrants to Lake Charles and Crawley, Louisiana, established businesses and homes in Southwest Louisiana.

As large as the Lake Charles Syrian and Lebanese American community was, it paled in comparison to the Syrian and Lebanese American community in Shreveport where 1910s and 1920s-writer Afifa Karam founded two Syrian American periodicals, wrote three novels, and 1920s-pianist and composer Louise Yazbeck launched her career.

Two months after George’s birth back in Lake Charles, stories about the Syrian and non-Syrian community in Crowley filled local and regional newspapers because a Syrian man, Mansour Nasser, had been killed by an African American man named Armus Woods, who a local militia had to protect from a reported lynch mob after evidence suggested the Nasser’s murder may have been intentional rather than an accident. By 1910, the press had declared Syrians in Lake Charles, hardworking, self-sacrificing, “fine examples of civic spirit” more worthy of praise for contributing to the city than any of “the wealthy corporations that make Lake Charles their home.”

A close look at the 1910 U.S. Census for Lake Charles shows us that enumerators in some parts of the United States listed people from Ottoman Empire as "Tur Eur Syria". This was the country of birth listed for Albert, Sarah, and Jamille Khoury. The subsequent 1920, 1930, and 1940, United States Census replaced "Tur Eur Syria" with "Syria." There were reportedly some 6,000 "Syrians" in Louisiana by 1910, although this is at best an estimate.

1910 US Census show "Albert Curry (Khoury)" and his neighbors and family including his wife Sarah, and two of their children George and Isaac. Courtesy of Ancestry.com

From stories in the Louisiana press, one would have never guessed Syrian immigrants faced broad-ranging attacks related to their race, citizenship status, and right to vote from 1909 and 1910 with the Najour and Ellis cases going before the courts. Louisiana, however, had a long history of being a state where racial and ethnic identity functioned with  the greatest fluidity. For the Khourys, struggles in America became much more personal and tragic when Albert died suddenly on the 28th of April 1914. Although Jamille was now married to fellow Syrian, Charlie George, Sarah was left to raise two children, George, 6, and Azizie or Isaac, 4. What’s more, Sarah had to hire a lawyer and go to court to access and finally lay claim to Albert’s $844.32 savings account because the Calcasieu Trust & Savings Bank had misheard and misspelled Albert’s surname as “Gordy” rather than “Khoury.” After months of litigation, notary publics, testimonies, and legal fees, the Khoury’s were finally able to claim Albert’s hard-earned savings. In addition to this, at the national level, the US courts finally put an end to political and legal wrangling over whether Syrians could identify as white and become naturalized citizens – thanks to people like Rev. Kahlil Bishara-the court decided both in the affirmative.

In 1914, notice related to assets of Albert Khoury were handled by his wife, Sarah, and son-in-law, "Charles George." Courtesy of Ancestry.com

Following Albert Khoury’s death, Sarah Khoury and her two young sons moved in with Jamille, her husband, and their four children. George was just two years older than his brother and four years older than his oldest niece. George’s brother-in-law, Charlie, managed a fruit stand and Sarah and Jamille worked to raise the children. The 1924 Johnson-Reed Act shut off virtually all immigration to the US from the Mandate territories, except for about 100 souls per year, and both George and Isaac got jobs to help care for their mother and re-establish their own home together by 1930. George worked in a local café as a waiter and Isaac toiled at a cotton compression company. One year later, in 1931, Syrian and Lebanese Americans and immigrants founded the Southern Federation of Syrian Lebanese American clubs. It was, like its other regional counterparts would become, an organization that dually celebrated the American and Syrian/Lebanese cultures and heritages of its members across the southern United States.

The Depression era hit Arab American communities particularly hard whether they were in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Crowley, or Lake Charles and the 1929 murder of Nola Romey by the Ku Klux Klan and his wife, Hasna, by police in Florida still resonated throughout Arab American communities especially in the South.  Groups like the Southern Federation of Syrian Lebanese Clubs not only emphasized their Americanness in an attempt to demonstrate their patriotism towards the United States, by highlighting this facet of their identities, they undoubtedly hoped to minimize discrimination they encountered at the hands non-Arab whites who still never fully accepted them as equals. Yet, many Syrian immigrants and Syrian Americans held on to their cultural ties and traditions. George and his siblings remained an active part of the Crowley and Lake Charles Syrian communities. All attended the joint masquerade Halloween party hosted by Syrian L'Fatette and L'Monar clubs in 1932. Jamille Khoury George especially took interest in news about the formation of the Southern Federation. The Federation worked to preserve Syrian culture, while it simultaneously hoped to ease the fear of some southern whites who perceived Syrian and Lebanese Americans as cultural outsiders and a threat. 

One mysteriously curious aspect of George Khoury's life was his marriage or marriages. In 1939, he seems to have been married to June S. Khoury, however the 1940 Census lists George as married residing only with his mother and brother. George's World War II draft card shows that he was married to Cleta Smith Khoury, but we could not find a marriage date or certificate for the union. By 1953, George was married to a beauty shop owner named Bobbie D. Khoury. The two were involved in a fender bender in 1955 which reportedly caused very little damage and minor injuries. They appear to have still been together in 1960. None of these women show up in George's obituary or other stories about Khoury.

Throughout the 1930s, George Khoury worked as a waiter, restaurant manager, and then as an amusement repairman of rental coin-operated machines in 1940. His brother worked in the same cafe and after Prohibition's end, tended bar. Both still lived with their 75-year old mother who was retired, but would live for another two decades. It is through repairing 78 RPM juke boxes that Khoury got into the record business.

Photo of George Khoury's Record Shop in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Courtesy of Arhoolie Records, "Cajun Honky Tonk: The Khoury Recordings" Volume 2 (2012). 

When the United States entered World War II, George Khoury enlisted and served as a Private First Class in the US Army. Over 15, 000 Arab Americans served in World War II in total. Some of those who spoke fluent Arabic found their translation abilities pressed into use especially in North Africa. Before enlistment, George opened his own record store in Lake Charles in 1941 and after being discharged from the military he used his connections in the record business to establish two record labels that specialized not in Arabic music, but Cajun music.

World War II Draft card for "George A. Khoury." Courtesy of Ancestry.com

George A. Khoury lived at 406 Hodges with his wife, mother, brother and sister-in-law. The record store was located at 328 Railroad Avenue. 

George Khoury had already lent his financial backing to Virgil Bozman’s OTR label, named for Bozman’s  Oklahoma Tornados band. Word around Lake Charles was that Khoury hoped to build a rival label to the Goldband label created by Ed Shuler and the Feature label owned by J.D. Miller, founded in 1949, Khoury’s and Lyric featured Cajun, Swamp Blues, and Cajun Blues. Khoury’s label lasted about eight or nine years and were pressed on 78 and 45 RPM discs. 

Jessie Bruce and his Royal Playboys "Prisoner Freedom Waltz" on Khoury's Bayou Hits Recordings label. Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection.

Khoury’s and Lyric filled huge gaps in recorded Cajun music and recorded the likes of Lawrence Walker, Jimmie Choates, and Horace Lebleau. Our acquisition includes recordings by Jesse Bruce and his Royal Playboys and Jerry Barlow and his Louisianans. Greater notoriety came because Khoury had produced, and some say co-wrote, the single “Sea of Love” by African American singer Philip Baptiste (aka Phil Phillips) for which George Khoury is best known. Mercury Records released the love ballad to a broader audience since the Khoury’s and Lyric labels were a small operation that pressed limited numbers initially. Khoury also recorded and produced so-called swamp pop legends Cookie and the Cupcakes who gained fame when their single “Matilda” managed to eke out a place on the Billboard charts in 1959.

Jerry Barlow & his Louisianians "Just Thinking of You" on George Khoury's Lyric Label. 

Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection.

“Sea of Love” and “Matilda” made more money for Khoury than he could ever imagined and initially George and Phil Phillips enjoyed the accolades together. But as time passed Khoury and Phillips parted ways just as Khoury parted ways with Cajun Music. Besides, producing country and R & B made more money.  Remakes and covers kept money coming in for George and Phil, by May 1964, segments of the Lake Charles police did not treat the Lebanese/Syrian community as it once had.  Turns out police shutdown a 1964 Mahrahjan hosted by the Cedars of Lebanon Club.  George likely attended the event and as did his older sister. Among the officers for the Cedars of Lebanon Club was George’s older sister, Jamille, who protested that the gathering of adults and children was a cultural event, "not some 1920s speakeasy."

Clipping courtesy of McNeese State University Archives, Lake Charles, Louisiana.

George maintained his record shop at 328 Railroad Avenue & Bilbo Street and sadly his mother, Sarah (97), who lived not far Khoury’s Record Shop at 406 Hodges, died in January 1963. Within two years, Khoury ceased producing records but maintained his store another thirty years into the 1990s.

Khoury's Record Shop ad, Lake Charles American Press, 8 November 1960. Courtesy of Newspapers.com

In 1996, the year after Arhoolie Records in El Cerrito, California, released the first volume of its Cajun Honky Tonk: The Khoury Recordings Volume 1, Philip Baptiste brought a copyright and fraud suit against George Khoury claiming that Khoury wrongfully added his name to the record contract, thus claiming authorship of “Sea of Love.” The story of white record executives taking advantage of African American musicians and singers is beyond the scope of this blog, but the case against exploitive white-owned record companies, even if owned by other marginalized people like Lebanese Americans or Jewish Americans is fairly damning. In the end, however, the courts dismissed the case against George Khoury.

Photo of George Khoury's Record Shop in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Courtesy of Arhoolie Records, "Cajun Honky Tonk: The Khoury Recordings" Volume 2 (2012). 

Louisiana's State legislature honored George Khoury, Floyd Soileau, Eddie Shuler, Carol Rachou, Lee Lavergne, and J.D. Miller, for their contribution to Louisiana and "Swamp Pop"culture in August, 1997. This marked one of Khoury's final public appearances. 

Ironically, almost thirty-five years to the day his mother passed, George Khoury died on 8 or 9 January 1998 at age 89 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Isaac Khoury, enlisted during World War II, married Laura Launey in 1950, had at least three children, and worked in the record selling business for most of his life. He died in 2001. Ed Shuler the producer and arranger who collaborated with Khoury died in 2005. Finally, Philip Baptiste aka Phil Phillips died in March 2020. There’s no evidence the dispute between he and Khoury was ever settled to Baptiste’s satisfaction. 

The most detailed writing on George Khoury’s label remains Arhoolie Records Cajun Honky Tonk: The Khoury Recordings Volumes 1 & 2 (1995 & 2012) complied by David Sax and Chris Strachwitz. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings acquired Arhoolie Records in 2016.

Special thanks to Wade Falcon, Gramophoney Baloney, Tom Diamant, Arhoolie Records, and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

Richard M. Breaux

© Midwest Mahjar