Sam Fackre: An Underrated Riqq Player and Percussionists
Sam Fackre: An Underrated Riqq Player and Percussionists Rare1966 Photo of Sam Fackre. Courtesy of Skye Fackre Gibson. Sometimes the difficulty with locating biographical information about Arab immigrants and Arab American musicians depends on the various ways their names transliterate from Arabic to English. The Arab American English-language press, in the form of The Syrian World magazine or Caravan newspaper, used multiple spellings for a host of early and middle-period musicians. One article in the Caravan highlighted this fact noting Khouri, Khoury, Cory, Corey, Kori, Koury, Khourey, and other variants on the spelling constituted the same surname. These differences in transliteration and spelling extend beyond those we can attribute to vowel variance or double consonants – Hemway/Hamway, Bedway/Budway, Hanan/Hannan/Hanaan, and Khaddaj/Kadaj/Kaddaj. The Standard Arabic Technical Transliteration System can’t always help one determine how a particular family decided to...