COMPOSERS: Fairuz
LABELS: Manteca
ALBUM TITLE: Fairuz - The Lady and the Legend
WORKS: Fairuz - The Lady and the Legend
PERFORMER: Fairuz
CATALOGUE NO: MANTCD 053
The title recalls EMI’s ‘The
Legendary Fairuz’, but this is an
infinitely superior compilation.
Born c1934, Fairuz (alias Huhad
Haddad) has been the unchallenged
queen of Lebanese popular music
for 50 years. Her refusal to emigrate
to safety during the civil war was
one reason why her compatriots
grew to adore her, but the real
reason is her voice: clean and
unadorned, but with the constant
hint of melisma, and drenched in
fervent emotion.
For the first half of her career
she sang songs by Asi Rahbani
(whom she married), to lyrics by
his brother Mansour; the gap left
when her marriage broke up has
now been filled by her jazz-composer
son Ziad, six of whose songs we
hear on this disc. The others are
classical Arab songs with traditional
orchestral accompaniment: where
her voice leads, massed strings follow
in unison. But with its brief but
excellent liner notes, this disc also
scores high on surprise: we even get
a three-minute studio discussion
before she launches into one of her
best-loved numbers. Michael Church