Johnny Barakat - The Mahrajan's and Surf Guitar's All But Forgotten 1960s Legend
Johnny Barakat - The Mahrajan's and Surf Guitar's All But Forgotten 1960s Legend Johnny R. Barakat. Courtesy of 1964 Chaffey College yearbook, p. 29. Readers of our blog will no doubt recognize that many see first generation, US-born Lebanese American Richard “Dick Dale” Mansour as the King of Surf guitar. Dick Dale’s “Misirlou” has been sampled by the Black-Eyed Peas, featured in several films, including Pulp Fiction, and has been covered, revised, remixed, at least two dozen times since first recorded by Tetos Demetriades in 1927. Most notably Anton Abdelahad recorded an Arabic version of the song in 1947 on his self-named Abdelahad Records. Mansour or Dale was, of course, the best known and recognizable, but not the sole Arab American surf guitar player to record in the 1960s. While scanning the Arab American press, we came across at brief article celebrating the musical career possibilities of another surf guitar player named Johnny Barakat. Newspaper clipping from the