Greater Syrian Diaspora at 78 RPM: Odette Kaddo

posted on: Jul 1, 2020

By: Richard Breaux/Arab America Contributing Writer

What do you do when you find several dozen 78 rpm records all in Arabic and you can neither read, nor speak the language? You research the musicians and record labels and write about them.…at least that’s what Arab America contributing writer, Richard Breaux did. The result is bound to teach you something about Arab American history and heritage in the first half of the 20th Century. Arab America highlights some of the well-known and lesser-known Arab American musicians profiled on this series. This week’s article features the Arab American music legend, Odette Kaddo.

One of the major differences between the first wave and second wave Arab immigrant musicians to the United States is the enormous amount of press coverage Arab expressive culture received in the Arab American press during and after World War II. This is the case for both Arab-language and English-language newspapers targeted at readers of Arab descent. A careful study of Al-Hoda newspaper in the 1910s and 1920s and The Syrian World in the 1920s and 1930s turned up very little information about Arab or Arab American record labels and musicians during this era.

A similar examination of the Arab American press during and after World War II yielded exponentially more about the haflas, mahrajans, phonograph record labels, and musicians popularly known in Arab American communities across the United States. The growth and technological developments in recorded sound after WWII meant that second-wave Arab immigrant musicians to the United States were more likely to have had well-established musical careers in Lebanon, Syria, or Egypt than their predecessors. This is especially true for singers like Odette Kaddo.

Odette Kaddo, Odetee Kehdo, or Odette Kadu was born 21 August 1927 in Zgharta, Greater Syria (now Lebanon). She was one of six children born to Jamile Corrah and Wadia J. Kaddo. Zgharta is in the mountainous region of northern Lebanon near Tripoli and Ehden. Zgharta’s proximity to Ehden is important to understanding how Odette eventually immigrated to the United States, but we will get to that later.

Odette started singing in 1936 at the age of nine. She listened to the music of Umm Kulthum and Asmahan and developed her own voice as she entered adolescence. She performed locally, then regionally with her brother, manager, and accompanying oud player Nassir Kaddo, when Mohammed Abdul Wahab introduced her to people in the music business and encouraged her to move to Cairo. There she faced discrimination from many Egyptians including nightclub owners and her idol Umm Kulthum, because Odette spoke a Lebanese dialect of Arabic rather than an Egyptian dialect. Kaddo perfected Egyptian Arabic and became a hit when she landed a record deal with Baidaphon records. On Baidaphon, her name is spelled Odetee Kehdo.

Her popularity soon spread throughout Lebanon and into Jordan, Egypt, and other parts of the Near East. As emigrants left the Middle East during this time, Kaddo’s voice, fame, and recordings found their way to France, Brazil, Australia, Mexico, and the United States. Life was good. Odette owned her own car and house but wanted more. She wanted to visit the United States; she wished to see Hollywood.

One of Odette’s biggest fans, friends, and supporters, was Arab musician Naif Agby. Agby immigrated to the United States around 1948 with his sister Olga “Kahraman” Agby. Meanwhile, by 1954, Odette’s fame and notoriety took her on tour to Paris where she and Nassir performed at “a series of engagements and television appearances.” By 1955, fans in Arab American communities in the United States eagerly awaited her arrival and proposed tour. Singer Naif Agby, who grew up in Ehden, Lebanon, only fourteen miles from Zgharta, sponsored her US tour.  She and Nassir arrived 16 February 1955 on Pan-Am Flight 065/16 from Beirut via Paris and the next day the Arab American press announced their arrival.

Her first concert in Brooklyn’s Syrian and Lebanese community included her brother, Nassir Kaddo, along with Naif Agby, Djamal Aslan, Philip Solomon, Sam Fackre, and Mike Hamway. Fans packed Brooklyn’s Hotel Bossert on the corner of Montague and Hicks streets on 30 March 1955 to see and hear Odette with their own eyes and ears. Odette first took up residence in Brooklyn and then Waterbury, Connecticut. Both cities had thriving Lebanese/Syrian communities.

By 1 May, Odette and Nassir performed at the fifth annual Middle East Melodies concert at Detroit’s Latin Quarter. Also, on the program were musicians Mohammed el-Bakkar and Philip Solomon. A week later, Odette and Nassir played at the first-anniversary hafli for the Sons of Lebanon Club of Binghamton, New York.  An engagement at the Cedars Resort Hotel followed just before Memorial Day, and a two-day mahrajan sponsored by the Lebanese-Syrian Society of Los Angeles fell over the Labor Day weekend. Odette finally saw Hollywood!

Naif Agby, Philip Solomon, Joe Budway, and Mike Hamway remained on tour with the Kaddos. Churches and cultural groups on the hafla and mahrajan circuit made up the majority of Odette’s performances, but on occasion, she and Nassir played private parties, as was the case in November 1955 when they sang for 400 guests at a Bar Mitzvah for the son of a Mr. And Mrs. Stanley Neheim at the Casa Del Rey in Florida. Odette closed out the year with another private performance, this time, for Naif Agby’s sister/singer Olga “Kahraman” Agby-Sutton.

Odette and Nassir continued with their second tour schedule into 1956 with dates in Miami on 5 February at the Al Kareem Club and 12 May for the Syrian-Lebanon American Clubs. Next, they were off to a 3^rd of March hafli in Miami Beach, then on to the Lebanese Flood Relief Concert on 11 March. Here the Kaddos appeared with Tony Abelahad. Following quickly on the heels of that fundraiser, the New England Region Syrian Orthodox Youth Organization or SOYO booked Odette and Nassir and Philip Solomon for its 16^th annual convention in Boston from 16 -18 March.

Another 500 people crowded into the Knights of Columbus Hall in Hartford, Connecticut to hear Odette, Nassir, Tony Abdelahad, Fred Elias, and Tony Tawa. Yet one of the biggest and best-attended concerts of the year took place in Jacksonville. There the Florida State Syrian-Lebanese American Clubs convention booked Little Sami Jourdak, Antoine Hage, and Odette and Nassir Kaddo for the multiple days’ festivities.

Odette recorded on E.S. Records or Eastern Star Records and Zodephone Records (a Lebanese label founded by Adnan Zodeh). Although the number of sides she cut on these labels remains unclear, one of her E.S. Records appears below. Odette traveled between the United States and Lebanon recording LPs and is known to have developed a life-long friendship with Jordan’s King Hussein.

Charity events and the hafla-mahrajan circuit remained the foundation of any Arab American musician’s career and the end of 1956 and the beginning of 1957 found Odette and Nassir in Syracuse, New York. At the request of the Lebanon Women’s Aid Society for orphans and the annual Holy Name Society of St. Louis Gonzaga Church Hafli in Utica, New York, Odette played old and new material. She rang in the New Year with an enthusiastic crowd at The Sheik Restaurant in Buffalo, New York. Odette only performed once in early 1957, because other, more important things, had developed in her life.

The year 1957 changed Odette’s life forever. On 4 May 1957, Odette Kaddo married Philip Peters, an emigrant from Hasroun, Lebanon, who relocated to Detroit, Michigan. The ceremony took place at Saint Maron’s Church in Detroit, with a reception at Detroit’s Latin Qiarters following. This time Odette’s friends and music colleagues Jaleel Azzouz, Philip Solomon, and Cliff Berbari performed at her private event. The couple honeymooned in Lebanon for several months and returned to the United States in October.

Life became much busier and her music career really slowed down because, in April 1958, Odette Kaddo Peter’s gave birth to her first child; eight-pound, ten-ounce, Rose Marie Peters. Being a mother is a full-time job and the only other musical commitment Odette made that year was a performance at a private celebration with Naif Agby, Kahraman, and Nassir Kaddo for a guest visiting Detroit from her home town.

Odette shocked fans in December 1959 and May 1960 when she collaborated with Naif Agby to release three 45 RPM records, one by Odette, one by Naif Agby, and a third, on the Kaddo Record Company label. Nassir Kaddo, of course, founded the label to help Kaddo’s brand generate more revenue. Odette, too, with Naif Agby working as composer and arranger, released Songs of the Cedars in 1960.

The success of Songs of the Cedars on Kaddo Records and Odette Sings Just for You on Orient Records became the last of six total commercial LPs by Odette. Most had been recorded in Lebanon. As she and Philip had more children, Anthony, Charles, and Philip Jr., she turned her attention to raising them and running the family business – the Detroit Sausage Company. Now the only private events and charity concerts were lucky enough to have Odette grace them with her presence and voice.

Odette became a Naturalized US Citizen 2 August 1968. By then, the federal government removed or no longer enforced overt racialized and ethnic-based bias immigration restrictions. Some historians of Arab American history consider this the year to be a part of a third immigration wave.

Odette faded from public view and in 1979 Philip Peters died.  Interestingly, Odette’s views on the Arab American music scene and on the gender politics among Arab women appeared in the Detroit Free Press on occasion. In a 1985 article about the various roles of women of Arab descent globally, Odette argued “I think Lebanese women are more advanced than (women) in the rest of the Middle East. I wouldn’t change anything for them. They have everything.” The author pointed out “Not all Arab women wear veils. Many pursue careers. Not all Arab women are subjected to a life of obedience to their husbands and families.” One year later, a write-up in the same newspaper named Odette Kaddo as one of several “Arab stars” who called Detroit home. The piece also noted that Odette’s seventeen-year-old niece, Amalia Kaddo, sang at local clubs regularly.

Odette returned to doing parties and charity benefit concerts by the late 1980s and early 1990s. She felt her voice had improved with age, but remembered how much she hated the tedious and exhaustive life of touring. She claimed that Arab Americans liked people like Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson, but sing Arab music because “it is a part of their souls.”

Odette Kaddo Peters died 1 September 1997 from cancer in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. She was 70 years old.

Richard M. Breaux is an Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse from Oakland, California. His courses and research explore the social and cultural histories of African Americans and Arab Americans in the 20th Century.

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