Laurice Peters: From the Derbecki Ensemble to the Queen of Cleveland's Arab American Music Scene

 


Laurice Peters: From the Derbecki Ensemble to the Queen of Cleveland's Arab American Music Scene

Laurice Peters circa 1960. From The Derbecki Ensemble's Hafli: Echos of the Middle East (1960)


In the recorded Arab American music scene in the Midwest, Detroit remained unmatched since Albert Rashid first established Al-Chark Records there before relocating his record operation to Manhattan and then Brooklyn, New York. We knew very little about Cleveland’s Arab American music culture until November, 2018, when we found several 33 1/3 LPs in the estate collection of Lucille Joseph Harris here in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Lucille, or Lucy, as she was better known was one of nine the children born to Shikralla Joseph and Mary Skaff Joseph in 1922. The Josephs had a history of initially working as peddlers and then they opened and operate a small grocery store not far from the family residence at 821 Windsor Street. One of the reasons Lucy’s estate contained so few Arabic records may be deduced from an interview she gave in 2002. Lucy Joseph Harris recalled the non-Arab children in her childhood who teased and bullied her about the foods she brought to school in her lunch and the "unusual" language she spoke. Lucy died in 6 November 2018.


Although Lucy’s estate contained a host of popular American music LPs from the 1950s and 1960s, other albums present in the collection included Naif Agby ‘s 1969 LP El Debke:Music of the Middle East, the Derbecki Ensemble’s Hafli: Echoes of the Middle East (1960) and Sahra, the Derbecki Ensembles' 1971 album. The Hafli album featured playing by musicians George Khayat, Eddie Shaheen, Eddie Hakkal, and Labbie George. In addition to Eddie Shaheen, vocalists included Phillip Gantose and an emerging star from Aitaneet, Lebanon named Laurice Peters.


Laurice Peters was born Laurice Nahra on 9 November 1930 to Toufica Ina Nahra and Elias Nahra. Laurice was the first of eleven children and she seems to have immigrated to the United States on 6 September 1947 with Cleveland-born David Nahra on board the S.S. Nea Hellus. Some of the Nahra family settled in Cleveland, Ohio, and Elias, Toufica and most of their children came to reside at 2543 Euclid Heights Blvd, in Cleveland Heights. On December 12, 1952, Laurice Nahra became a naturalized citizen of the United States and on 9 September 1953 she married Ohio-born James E. Peters, whose Syrian parents arrived in the United States in 1915.


Naturalization card for Laurice Peters. Courtesy of Ancestry.com


Laurice Peters' US-career began with Cleveland's Derbecki Trio. Eddie Shaheen turned from playing popular orchestra gigs to Arabic music after teaming up with Russ Carlyle and recording “Derbecki” for Capitol Records in 1949, they re-cut the record on ABC-Paramount again in 1959. Other Arab American singers like Virginia Atter later sang on Capitol as well. Eddie Shaheen and Labbie George formed the group’s core from the beginning. Others who joined to make the group a sometimes trio and other times a larger ensemble included Daher Rumya, George Khayat, and Eddie Hakkal. Twenty-six-year-old Laurice Peters first joined the group in 1957.


Ad for the Lorise Peters and the Derbecki Trio. July 30-August 6, 1958, Lebanese American Journal. 


The Derbecki Ensemble with Peters played haflas in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and the regional hafla/mahrajan circuit between 1957 and early 1960s. After the release of the Hafli LP, the Derbecki Ensembles' bookings took them across the United States and into Canada. Record ads made appeals for inquiry to Arab American Radio programs in Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, and other states. Within a year, on 11 November 1961, the Ensemble featuring Laurice Peters appeared at the Saint George’s Syrian Orthodox Church in Norwood, Massachusetts. The following year, group stops included Nick Yanko’s Fine Cuisine and Cocktails in Akron where the belly dancer, Juliana, performed. Nineteen-sixty-four saw the release of the Derbecki Ensemble and Peters' LP Dabkie: Exotic Dances of the Middle East. Peters and George Khayat performed lead vocals on this project that included ten songs on the disc and instructions on how to dance the dabkie on the rear album cover. By July, 1964, Peters began doing solo performances at haflas including a guest appearance at Saint Elijah’s Syrian Orthodox Church in the Canadian capital of Ottawa. The hafla was the culminating event for the churches 34th annual celebration of the Feast of Saint Elijah.




Hafli: Echoes of the Middle East (1960).Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection.
The Derbecki Ensemble featuring Laurice Peters "Ya Jar" https://youtu.be/vp2ac2dOXyU

On occasion, Laurice Peters and the Derbecki Ensemble booked shows on the regular East Coast mahrajan/hafla circuit, however, as a soloist, Peters made appearances at events with a host of well-known, veteran Arab American musicians across the country. The Saint Mary’s Orthodox Church 15th annual hafla took the group to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in May, 1965. Two months later, July 29-31, the Midwest Federation of Syrian Lebanese Clubs held their annual convention in the group’s home town of Cleveland. The turnout was massive and anyone not already convinced of Laurice’s vocal talents, left the entertainment portion of the convention assured Laurice Peters was a truly phenomenal vocalist. One critic even proclaimed, “The Lebanese songs, which are written by [Wadih el-]Safi, are classics. All tell a story, and a lot of it is ad lib including the audience. A Cleveland gal, Laurice Peters, has the most beautiful voice I have had the pleasure of hearing in a long time. I’m sure you’d all enjoy the beat of the music. Not belly dance stuff as you’d expect, but just a very lively exotic sound. Hope you get a chance to hear and see the same sometime.”  To be sure, others were eager to hear for themselves. Semi Shaheen, Ray Shaheen, and Elia Baida joined Peters at the 14th annual Saint George’s hafla near Glens Falls, New York in June, 1967. Peters returned to Ottawa's Saint Elijah Orthodox Church hafla in 1967, following the Sunday morning service presided over by Archbishop Metropolitan Philip Saliba. As the 1960s came to a close, bookings for Laurice Peters as a soloist increased exponentially. From time to time, Peters employed back-up singers called "the Pyramids" and other engagements required singing a song or two at a wedding ceremony like that of Elaine Harouni and Elias Salim in Flint, Michigan, 22 June 1969. Of course, the National Association of Maronites held their convention in Cleveland from July 3-6, 1969, and booked Peters along with Tony Abdelahad, Hanan, Philip Solomon, and the Derbecki Ensemble. 


Laurice Peters, Elia Baida, Semi Sheheen, Ray Sheheen, appeared together in June, 1967. The Post Star 17 June 1967, Courtesy of Newspapers.com

At 40, Laurice Peters showed few signs of slowing down, becoming the regularly selected headliner for the Saint Mary’s Orthodox Church hafla or the Saint George’s and Saint Anthony’s Maronite Churches hafla in Wilkes-Barre. Additionally, Saint Ann’s Maronite Church in West Scranton remained an annual stop even after Peters became a solo recording artist. Nearly every year from 1970-1980, Peters sang at the Saint Mary’s Hafla in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She also performed in Indianapolis at the Middle Eastern “500” Hafla in 1970, in Denver in for the Western Federation of American-Lebanese Syrian Association June 30-July 3, 1972 (followed by a gig in Salem, New Hampshire, Labor Day Weekend the same year), at another hafla in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1975, and recited the liturgical services at Saint Anthony’s Church in 1977. Invitations to return to a hafla year after year offered Peters opportunities to perform with different musicians and ensembles. In 1973, she accompanied Eddie “The Sheik” Kochack, Hakki Obadia, and Said Shirkowy. She jammed with Joe Budway, Leo Budway, and Eddie Khoury in 1975 and again in 1977 with Hakki Obbadia, Said Shirkowy, and Bassam Makhoul. Remarkably, Laurice Peters travelled to Lebanon in 1970 where she appeared on television and radio, then released Laurice Peters in Lebanon (1972), Khalil Gibran: Songs of the Poet Sung by Laurice Peters (1973), Laurice Peters Sings (nd) and War Memories (nd), all by 1977. 


AMEER or the American Middle Eastern Entertaining & Recording Company in Parma, Ohio recorded and released all four of Peter’s solo LPs in the 1970s. We are uncertain about whether Jim and Laurice Peters or her former bandmate Eddie Shaheen owned AMEER or whether it was a joint venture between this trio. We know with greater certainty that the address on the back of the LP covers which reads “3370 West Pleasant Valley Road, Parma, Ohio, 44134” came up as a second residence of Laurice and James Peters whose primary residence was noted to be "777 Kennelwood Drive in Cleveland." While Peters worked out of her home in Parma, the RCA Records Pressing Plant in Indianapolis, Indiana, pressed the records.


Khalil Gibran: Songs of the Poet sung by Laurice Peters (1973). Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection.
https://youtu.be/qsTvG0FNhmM


The information printed on each of the LPs varies, with little biographical information about Laurice Peters. Sometimes the names of the musicians that accompanied her on the recording, and in some cases the names of the songs’ composers received credit. For instance, each of the six tracks on Laurice Peters in Lebanon (1972) lists the composer – Michael Thomey (2), Tanios El-Hamlawey, George Saab, Assad Saba, and Shafic El-Maghrabi respectively. This project also notes the orchestra was “The Most Famous Lebanese Radio Station Orchestra.” On Khalil Gibran: Songs of the Poet Sung by Laurice Peters (1973), Tawfik El-Bashara conducted the Lebanese Radio Orchestra. The Arabic lyrics had been long-ago penned by Khalil Gibran and English lyrics written by Peters herself.  The ensemble on the eight-song Laurice Peters Sings LP included George Shaheen on violin, Bob Clovis Berbari (son of Alamphon singer and oudist George Berbari) on oud, Monsour Bydoun on derbecki, and a young Ali Jihad Racy on buzuq and nay.


Laurice Peters Sings (nd). Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection.
Laurice Peters "Douwara" - https://youtu.be/ASbPb6byE-g

As Laurice Peters entered her fifth decade, she sang at the occasional hafla and wedding. One of the last hafla we can document that featured her was the Saint Ann’s Maronite hafla in West Scranton, Pennsylvania, 21-23 October 1983. This is the same Saint Ann’s Maronite Church in West Scranton where early Columbia and Maloof Records singer Rev. George Aziz served as the first pastor. Close relatives remember Peters paying special attention to the children in her family, especially her granddaughter Victoria. Later in life as Laurice retired from the hafla scene, she spent time between Naples, Florida and Ohio. More recently, she sang at the wedding of her niece Jennifer Nahra to Gabriele Germana in December, 2008.


Sadly, while we were in the middle of completing this post, Laurice Peters died 11 September 2021. We tried and failed to reach her at several listed telephone numbers in Florida and Ohio. We never had the opportunity to interview her, but we had brief correspondence with her niece. We dedicate this post to Laurice Peters. May her legacy, memory, and music be eternal.


Special Thanks to Alex Votichenko and Jennifer Nahra Germana.




Richard M. Breaux


© Midwest Mahjar

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

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