Sunday 20 June 2010

Farid el Atrache - Awal Hamsa (1972)



This is an awe-inspiring live recording from 1972 of Farid el Atrache, 'the King of the Oud', which captures the fevered atmosphere of one of his concerts. Farid is considered to be one of the greatest oud players in the world and one of the most important Arabic artists. He was born in 1915 in Syria, but moved to Egypt as a child. His musical career started in the 1930s and then in the 1940s he embarked on a career in the movies, acting and composing soundtracks.

Farid was something of a playboy and refused to marry arguing that marraige kills art. There's more info to be found HERE and a bunch more mp3s over HERE.

Here's a great clip from one of his films:


The oud solos on this recording really are something special and I hope you enjoy this as much as I am.

Tracklist:

01 Awal Hamsa (Part 1)
02 Awal Hamsa (Part 2)

Get it HERE.

4 comments:

icastico said...

Excellent. Thanks as always.

Anonymous said...

much appreciated. beautiful stuff.

Richard S. said...

Hm, I just found this old post by tracing stats from my blog right after I'd posted a bunch of dances by Tahia Carioca. Couldn't possibly be mere coincidence...

Farid El Atrache is always a pleasure to listen to, and the clip is fun. But it's different from the film scenes with him that I've grown to love... By which I mean the great black-and-white belly dancing scenes with Tahia Carioca and, especially, Samia Gamal...

I had also read about his strange notion that marriage kills art. After being Samia's lover for (how many?) years, he refused even to marry her. Very odd :)...

Likedeeler said...

This is great! Blog, too. Thank you & kind regards