AL-SAMAH/ ARĀKA ṬARŪBAN
This is a copy of a commercial tape I got from a friend who lived in Sana'a for a while. Numerous tapes and their copies were widely in circulation in Yemen the problem being that if the music can be copied the tapes covers were not; so apart from the name of the singer and sometimes the title of the tape nothing is available about the content. Of course it doesn't matter too much for Yemeni people who understand the lyrics and know the singers but for us it's a loss.
Ali Al-Simah (Samah) was a famous singer and lute player in the Sana'a tradition who was active between the sixties and the eighties (my guess) but it's difficult to find information about him.
There is only one darbuka player with him but it's enough to create a wonderful music based on vigourous ud playing.
Thanks to Leonidas plenty of information about Al-Samah in the comments below.
Thank you Herve for this recording!!
ReplyDeletea nice photo for your post :
http://yemenihouse.org/photo/20-04-01-1242870980.jpg
A biography of the late Ali Abdullah Al-Simah
He was born in one of the old neighborhoods of Sanaa, lived his childhood and life there, and studied in its schools.
He was influenced by the arts that Sanaa contained and imbibed from them.
At the beginning of his life, he worked in his father's profession of driving freight carriers.
He immigrated to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in search of work like others who tended toward expatriation, then returned to his homeland.
He joined the ranks of the Armed Forces (Engineers Corps) and was promoted to the rank of major.
He holds a Master’s degree in military sciences from the Soviet Union in 1973-1977.
He studied music at the Higher Institute of Music (Aden).
He worked at Sanaa Radio in the coordination and libraries department, then at Taiz Radio as an editor in the news department.
The artist Ali Al-Samah is considered from the generation of revival of the Yemeni heritage, like his fellow artists such as Ali Al-Ansi, Ahmed Al-Sindar, Muhammad Saad Abdullah, Muhammad Abu Nassar, Al-Harithi and others. He has his place among the pioneers of innovation in Yemeni song, as attested to by his lyrical works that he excelled in composing, such as the song (A Look from You) and ( Shaheem All Nights, Hawa Ghaniya, and others.
Just as the artist Ali Al-Samah was creative in his emotional singing, he was also creative in his patriotic and social singing, such as the song (Al-Balah), (Above the Mountain), (Ya Caravan), (Al-Wahda) (Ya Habiba, Yayman).
He sang for the Yemeni revolution and for the popular resistance during the siege of the seventies. Perhaps those who witnessed those events remember the anthem (Live with me the men of the resistance), whose words he wrote and whose beautiful melody was composed.
He dealt with many song poets in Yemen, such as the poets Abbas Al-Mut'a - with whom he formed a beautiful duo - Mutahar Al-Eryani, Abbas Al-Dailami, Abdullah Abdul-Wahhab Noman and others.
We knew the artist Ali Al-Samah as a great singer, but in this encyclopedia we will get to know him as a poet who wrote the lyric poem and excelled at it, and we still memorize and remember his beautiful songs that were from his words, melody and singing, such as (Yam oppressed) (You who ascend the mountain) (You are the sperm and life) and other of his famous songs to this day.
The artist and poet Ali Abdullah Al-Samah died on March 21, 1984.
info for his son here https://www.last.fm/music/%D8%AD%D9%85%D9%88%D8%AF+%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%85%D9%87/+wiki
Very good Leonidas; I can see now why I couldn't find anything about him : the transliteration of his na
Deleteme is different ...
Deleteالفنان علي عبدالله السمة
ReplyDeleteAli Abdullah Al-Simah live : https://youtu.be/OSvpiMyI7Gg
https://youtu.be/YWrot5LtWGU
Delete