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

  Mustafa D. Siam: Arab Tunes Records, Political Activism, and the Struggle for Palestinian Recognition Mustafa Siam, 1962. Lincoln Heights Bulletin, Newspapers.com A few months ago, we can across several 45 rpm and 33 rpm records that sparked our curiosity. The “Arab Tunes” label with its logo of a man wearing a keffiyeh and an agal, is one we’d never seen before, but included a Los Angeles, California distribution address printed on the record and the record’s sleeve. The current note in Discogs.com for the Arab Tunes record label reads “was an American Arab label.” The sparsely vague description of the label and non-existent information about its owner, artists, and history are representative of the gaps in information about Arab American recorded music and music of the Greater Syrian diaspora in the United States that led us to establish Midwest Mahjar back in 2018. A relatively small amount of digging reveals that Arab Tunes emerged in the 45 rpm and 33 1/3 rpm era. The compa...

  Nourhane:   A Forgotten Singer, Rediscovered by Her Granddaughter   Photo property of May Kassem. Not every singer or musician we’ve featured at Midwest Mahjar immigrated to the United States from Greater Syria or the countries that had once been a part of Bilad al-Sham. Some, in fact, may have never come to the United States at all. Because a host of Alamphon , Arabphon , and Alkawakeb singles had previous lives on Baidaphon or other labels pressed for the Mashriq, these same musicians developed a fan base of listeners who settled in the US, but travelled quite frequently between the Mashriq and the United States. Recording artists like Um Kulthum, Fairuz, Asmahan, Nour Al Hoda, Farid Al-Atrash, and Mohamed Abdel Wahab moved voluminous numbers of 78 rpm records in the United States. One Alamphon 78 rpm that puzzled us for considerable time is Alamphon #A3134 1-2 “Yahwaidalak” by a Nourhane. Most attempts to locate Nourhane only led us to the contemporary singer who us...