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| A young Mahieddine Bachetarzi. 1920s? |
Somewhere in an attic or an archive exists a recording of
Mahieddine Bachetarzi singing Josephine Baker’s iconic J’ai deux amours. Why he
chose to cover this particular song and what meaning one can discern from a
national figure like Bachetarzi singing about his love for two nations during
the turbulent 1930s will have to remain but speculation for now. What this does
suggest, however, is the existence of “the cover” as a genre during the middle
third of the twentieth century in Algeria. In fact, if it was one thing that
Algerian Muslim and Jewish musicians shared, it was a passion for covering the
hits. Covers took a variety of forms during this period but the most
intriguing, as already eluded to, was the phenomenon of translating mostly French
language
chansons into Arabic and in
that process, giving them entirely new meanings.
Perhaps the best known of these cover artists was one
Mahieddine Bentir, of whom
Ted Swedenburg has written about recently. Bentir,
born in 1934 in Algiers, hit on something big in the 1950s when he began
transforming American rock ‘n’ roll into “rock oriental” and set French genres
to Algerian rhythms. He brought tremendous energy to his position at the
RTF
(Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française) in Algeria and as an independent artist,
one who was fond of doing summersaults on stage at a particularly rockin’
moment. He has cited
Robert Castel, Lili Labassi’s son, as one of his
inspirations. Bentir’s
Ana Bouhali, his appropriation of the classic
Je Suis Le
Vagabond, captures a certain slice of music hall Algeria in the 1950s
perfectly.
Here’s a short version of the French and then Bentir’s exhilarating
Arabic rendition:
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Lili Boniche performs at the Salle Pierre Bordes - Algiers, 1959
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Lili Boniche, also known as “the Crooner of the Casbah,” was
another cover cheikh. Born in 1921 to a Jewish Algerois family,
le jeune
Boniche was already making a splash in the Algerian papers by the mid-1930s, an
especially impressive feat given his age at the time. Boniche became a staple
of Algerian radio during the period and then began recording 78 rpm records for
the
Pacific label in the 1940s. He is most famous for his hit songs (all of which were later covered by others)
Elle Est Partie (Mchate
aliya),
Eili Mektoub,
Carmelita, and
Bambino, the last an Arabic cover of the Neapolitan
song,
Guaglione, which was then all the rage in Europe and soon North Africa.
Throughout his Algerian career, Boniche attracted tremendously
large, mixed audiences.
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| Luc Cherki in all his disco glory. 1979. |
Many have argued, in what appears to be a historiographic
misstep, that Boniche, for a number of personal reasons, all but stopped
performing in France upon his arrival there. This position helps to bolster the
claim that he was “rediscovered” in the early 1990s by Bill Laswell, among
others. In fact, a review of his releases reveals the opposite - Boniche
recorded constantly and consistently through the 1960s and 1970s, both for his
own
LB label and for
El Kahlaoui Tounsi’s Dounia. Shockingly, he even cut a
disco EP, much like
Luc Cherki, in the late 1970s.
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| Lili Boniche. Ya Yemma (La Mamma). LB Disques. 1963. |
If Boniche took a break from music, it was possibly during
that traumatic and confusing year of Algerian independence, although there is only
scant evidence to support this. Whatever the case, he was certainly “back” on
the scene as of 1963.
It was that year that Charles Aznavour’s La Mamma had
reached the number one spot on charts across the continent and unsurprisingly,
Boniche chose to cover it for the A side of his first release on his new label.
In my opinion, Boniche’s Arabic version – Ya Yemma – is even more powerful than
the original. Clearly not just a lament for a mother,
Ya Yemma can easily be
“read” or heard as a longing for Algeria itself. Below you will find both the
Aznavour original and the Boniche cover with the
Lucien Attard Orchestre
playing back up. Take a listen:
Finally, I would be remiss in not mentioning
Salim Halali,
the subject of my last post, and his Arabic take on another song about mothers,
the Yiddish classic
My Yiddishe Mama. Below is a classic Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt version
and the later Halali adaptation. I dare say this is the only Yiddish song ever
translated into Arabic but I would be happy to be proven wrong.
Until next time…Happy New Year to all.
