Abdel Halim Hafez’s music lives on, Forty one years after his loss of life

Abdel Halim Hafez’s first look on the national theatre in Egypt’s coastal city of Alexandria in the summer of 1951 turned into as soon as no longer as glamorous as he had hoped.

His contemporary tune, Safeeny Marra (Be Tremendous To Me Once), turned into as soon as met with boos, tomatoes and flying eggs.

The target audience indispensable him to carry out assorted songs for neatly-acknowledged singer Mohamed Abdel Wahab. However Abdel Halim refused, insisting on performing his tune, which led the organisers to kick him out of stage.

However after the Egyptian revolution in 1952, Abdel Halim sang the identical tune at a ceremony held at the el-Andalos Park in central Cairo. This time it turned into as soon as neatly got.

He then followed it with songs corresponding to Foa el shook (On the Thorns) and Ala ad el-shoa (As Mighty as the Passion), performed furthermore in his distinctive contemporary form of singing.

Abdel Halim radically transformed the contemporary Arabic tune in phrases of lyrics, melodies and performing – and turned into as soon as even sampled by American music celeb Jay-Z several a long time later.

However the phenomenon turned into as soon as no longer in any respect times met with approval by his contemporaries in the Egyptian music scene.

His style turned into as soon as rejected by composer Riyad al-Sunbati, who wrote one operetta for Hafez called Lahn al-Wafa (Melody of Loyalty) in the early 1950s.

Al-Sunbati most neatly-liked Abdel Halim’s brother Ismail Shabana, saying that he had a dispute that turned into as soon as stronger and calmer.

Nevertheless, Abdel Halim turned into as soon as neatly-got by musician Mohamed Abdel Wahab, who realised – after some hesitation – that his turned into as soon as the dispute of the long hump, so he co-based the company Disclose of Art with him.

Abdel Halim, who came from the center of Egyptian countryside and turned into as soon as identified in his childhood with schistosomiasis [an acute and chronic parasitic disease], turned into as soon as lucky that his emergence coincided with the foundation of the July 23 revolution.

This gave him the different to allege many songs that modified into him into a modern figure at some point soon of President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rule, till his loss of life in September 1970.

Abdel Halim knew first and most indispensable of the revolution that Abdel Nasser continuously is the long hump leader – and Abdel Nasser knew that Abdel Halim continuously is the dispute to transfer his ideas to the folk.

Abdel Halim sang rather a couple of patriotic songs at some point soon of that duration, a physique of music that assured him a everlasting web page in the hearts of Arabs.

Some of those songs embody Assad el-Aali (The High Dam), Hekayet Shaab (The Story of a Nation) and Thawretna al-Masriyah (Our Egyptian Revolution).

Singer of the loads

The late author Yusuf Idris believed that Abdel Halim turned into as soon as of particular importance in Egyptians’ lives and the 1952 revolution.

Nizar Qabbani, the significant Arab poet, agreed with this peep, saying that Abdel Halim turned into as soon as a singer of the loads who led his folks with his dispute, and turned into as soon as Abdel Nasser’s proper ministry of communication.

Israel turned into as soon as furthermore conscious of this fact: Moshe Dayan, its then defence minister, said « Abdel Halim is Abdel Nasser’s hand in influencing Arab loads, and we must bag this hand or spot it off ».

Egypt’s defeat in the June struggle of 1967 turned into as soon as personally painful to Abdel Halim.

In collaboration with Abdul Rahman al-Abnudi, a neatly-acknowledged poet, Halim performed many songs expressing the bitterness of the defeat, most famously Adda al-Nahar (The Day has Passed) and Fedai (Freedom Fighter).

He furthermore sang for Jerusalem his significant tune, Christ, at the The Royal Albert Corridor in London.

A part of the songs says:

Now, O Jerusalem, your son is like Christ; a stranger, a stranger

The crown of thorns on his brow, and over his shoulder is the shocking

Betrayed, betrayed by the identical Jews

Your son, O Jerusalem, factual like Christ, must return …on the identical land.

Over the route of those years, his emotionally charged songs affirmed his standing, and his reputation prolonged into cinema, starring in movies corresponding to in Melody of Loyalty, Dalila, Love Story, Sins and My Father is on the Tree.

Tensions and disputes

Abdel Halim’s years of artistic glory had been no longer immune from disputes and tensions.

In 1964, he turned into as soon as caught up in a public dispute with internationally significant singer Umm Kalthoum at the halt of her Revolution Anniversary stay performance, which turned into as soon as attended by Abdel Nasser.

Abdel Halim regarded on the stage angrily after the social gathering, protesting against Umm Kulthum’s late-evening performance.

« Umm Kulthum and Abdel Wahab insisted that I allege at the present, and I create no longer know whether it is some distance an honour or a prank, » Abdel Halim said.

Umm Kulthum turned into as soon as infected and insisted that Abdel Halim can also unbiased gentle never piece the Revolution Anniversary stay performance stage in conjunction with her all as soon as more.

Abdel Halim had a spat with but but some other significant musician of the time, Farid al-Atrash.

For 25 years, Farid had monopolised singing at Sham Ennessim [Egyptian spring holiday], however when he moved to Beirut in 1966, Abdel Halim took his web page.

Nevertheless, in 1970 Farid made a shock comeback and took wait on his web page as the central figure of Sham Ennessim celebrations, a return that turned into as soon as no longer neatly got by Abdel Halim.

This time, it turned into as soon as Abdel Nasser who intervened. He ordered that tv and public media broadcast Farid’s stay performance, and that Abdel Halim’s performance be recorded and aired on TV the next day, while being broadcaast dwell by Sawt al-Arab radio.

Abdel Halim furthermore had a dispute with his frail grand friend and author, Ihsan Abd al-Quddous, who wrote the e book on which Abdel Halim’s film, Lost between Heaven and Earth, turned into as soon as based fully mostly.

Abdel Halim turned into as soon as mad when he read the script that told the parable of a significant singer who pretended to be ailing to plot attention to himself.

The converse scared Abdel Halim, and as a result the 2 males’s long-standing friendship turned into as soon as ruined.

Loads of his contemporaries, corresponding to Mohammed Rushdie, Muharram Fouad, Maher al-Attar and others, accused him of antagonising them and attempting to monopolise the highlight.

Abdel Halim defended himself in a tv interview a couple of months sooner than his loss of life. He said he only had one contemporary tune a 365 days thanks to his neatly being, so asked how may perhaps presumably well well he be in the form of anybody?

A tragic halt

Regardless of all of his success and reputation, Abdel Halim’s occupation turned into as soon as destined for a tragic ending after he clashed with his target audience at the 1976 Spring Competition, the place he performed yearly.

Abdel Halim turned into as soon as singing The Cup Reader, a  poem by poet Nizar Qabbani, for the principle time, when a community of oldsters started interrupting him by whistling and shouting.

Abdel Halim tried to gentle them down, however and not utilizing a luck.

He then stopped singing and angrily told them: « I will whistle and tell like you, too! »

And he did. He whistled at them while grabbing a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the sweat from his brow.

Following this incident, Abdel Halim turned into as soon as subjected to a fierce media advertising campaign which forced him to come out and apologise.

It turned into as soon as no longer long after that Abdel Halim’s neatly being deteriorated.

For the length of his fashioned verify-up at King’s College Effectively being facility in London in early 1977, Halim’s doctor discovered that there turned into as soon as bleeding in his oesophagus that required a liver transplant, a surgical blueprint that turned into as soon as somewhat contemporary at the time.

Abdel Halim rejected the operation and, going against the clinical doctors’ advice, insisted that the focus can also unbiased gentle only be on stopping the bleeding.

His heart stopped as clinical crew had been attempting to halt the bleeding. He passed away in the evening of March 30, 1977, at the age of 48.

Bigger than four a long time on, Abdel Halim’s songs and music dwell on thru the lives and memory of many folks and artists world huge.