Riffing this week on hawglblawg's recent post "Algerian Twist", which gathers some Algerian twist-related singles, I've got an old 45 here Abdelwahab Doukkali.
Doukkali is one of the leading figures of Moroccan chanson moderne. Singer, composer, oud player, he's responsible for many enduring songs from the '60s up to the present.
This is from pretty early in his career, and is certainly not one of his most memorable pieces, though it is an interesting one. The song is addressed to a woman, asking her not to cut short her hair or dye it to follow trends (la mode). Are the twist beat and choral interjections of the song meant to evoke the modernity that the woman threatens to follow? Or is the juxtaposition meant to be ironic - that the man singing the song warns against this modernity while himself "twisting"?
Listen to side 1 here:
Get it all here.
PS - I'm a big fan of Doukkali. You can hear a lot of good stuff of his at Yala. And Amazon even has a few albums of his. I'll revisit the stash and see if I have any unavailable goodies to share.
PPS - I picked up this 45 at the fabulous Comptoir Marocain de Distribution de Disques in Casablanca, as did the blogger at iCrates, whose scan of the 45 sleeve I stole for this post (his/her copy was in slightly better shape than mine).
