Greater Syrian Diaspora at 78RPM: Anton Abdelahad

posted on: Dec 2, 2020

By: Richard M. 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 in this series. This week’s article features Arab American music legend, Anton Abdelahad.

Few Arab American musicians enjoyed the productivity and longevity of singer and ‘oud player, Anton “Tony” Abdelahad (1915-1995). His live and recorded songs became a staple at “mahrajans” and “haflas” from the 1940s to the 1980s. Ramsa Bergoot and Assad Abdelahad immigrated to the United States on 4 September 1904 and 1902, respectively. On 25 November 1905, the couple married in Boston, Massachusetts, and settled among a group of Lebanese and Syrians around Hudson Street, Harrison, and Tyler in the heart of Boston just blocks from the Chinese immigrant enclave. The Abdelahads had three children: Evelyn in 1908, Anton in 1915, and Charles in 1918.

Anton “Tony” Abdelahad was born 25 July in 1915 to Syrian immigrant parents, Assad and Ramsa Abdelahad, in Boston, Massachusetts. Tony Abdelahad heard an earlier generation of Arab and Arab American musicians on 78 rpm records his father had shipped from Greater Syria, and soon developed a style of his own.

In 1936, one of the first newspaper accounts of an event Tony played noted, “Anton Abdelahad, a youthful vocalist with the Happy Arabian Club Orchestra, won outspoken approval from members of the audience, many of whom were Arabians or of Arabian descent. They murmured their appreciation in the Arabic tongue during a number of his solos, using words and expressions….” Abdelahad began to appear regularly at haflas and mahrajans. The annual concert at John Raad American Legion Post # 438 in Patterson, New Jersey, featured Abdelahad’s group.

Beyond the world of performance, Abdelahad continued to live with his parents, but that all changed by the Fall of 1940. Anton Abdelahad married Mississippi-born Syrian American, Mary Kirby. The Abdelahads eventually had four children: three daughters and one son.

Although Abdelahad played with a host of Arab and Arab American musicians, in 1946 he began to appear routinely with Philip Solomon on violin, Fathalla Abyada on oud, Moses Kalouky on announ/kanoon, and Mike Hamway on drums. Abdelahad performed with Joe Budway occasionally and came under the influence of Russell Bunai. Although he recorded on a number of record labels, in 1947 Abdelahad started his own Abdelahad Records.

The Abdelahad Record label seemed to operate from 1947 to 1949. Its labels always contained the name Abdelahad on them, but they were red with white print, red with black print, and light blue with dark blue print variations. Some light blue labels bear the trademark illustration of a sphinx with Great Pyramids in the center (also common on red label Abdelahads) but others lack this familiar symbol. The company also published a songbook called, “Abdelahad’s Song Book.”

A crowd favorite became his version of Miserlou, a Mediterranean tune, first recorded by Theodotos Demetriades in 1927 and covered several times over by the time Adbelahad released his version KCG 7019A in 1948. By 1955, Anthony Abraham’s Newark-based Al-Kawakeb or “The Stars” record label seemed to have acquired Abdelahad. Several of the singles that appeared on Abdelahd’s label also appeared on Al-Kawakeb.

Like Elia Baida, Naim Karakand, and Nejeeba Morad, Anton Abdelahad became a household name celebrated in Lebanese/Syrian American communities as one of its best performers. The Glen Falls, New York, two-day hafla sponsored by Saint George’s Orthodox Church became a staple in the Binghamton Metropolitan area and it along with the Syrian and Lebanese Federation of the Eastern States annual “Club Algiers” gave Abdelahad top billing.

Similarly, the Aleppian Charity Society of Patterson annual Oriental music concert in December 1954, featured Abdelahad and Fadwa Abed on vocals, Joe Budway and Naim Karacand on violin, and Mike Hamway on drums. Around the same time, Abdelahad lent his face to an advertisement on for the Eastern Star Restaurant at 205 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. The campaign read, “Eat Where the Stars Eat” playing on Abdelahad’s rising fame as well as the name of the restaurant.

Abdelahad, Russell Bunai, Louis Morad, and Tony Tawa performed at the Blue Slipper Club in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and in other venues in Worcester and Boston proper. The Arabic Radio Program sponsored an annual hafla in Lawrence in March 1954. The presence of Mike Sarkisians Club Tamba troupe on the program made this event different from past gigs.

As Abdelahad made his rounds on the annual mahrajan and hafla circuit in 1955 and 1956, he noticed that increasingly his back started to irritate and then pain him. The pain became so excruciating that Abdelahad missed the April 15, 1956 hafla in Paterson, New Jersey. It was his first missed show in twenty years. It suggests a mixed ethnic audience of eighty or so Arabs (Syrian and Lebanese) and Armenians in attendance. To be sure, more than ten years later, the Bridgeport, Connecticut Lions Club event in August 1967, featured Abdelahad along with musicians of Turkish, Armenians, Greek, and Israeli descent.

One of Abdelahad’s few 1970s hafla’s was taken place at Saint Anne’s Melkite Byzantine Church in Patterson New Jersey in May 1970. The crowds he played for by this time had aged, but could still throw a mean hafla. The crowds and demand were not what they had once been, but some young people came to appreciate Abdelahad’s skillfulness and that of his bandmates. The last documented Sahra featured Ronnie Kirby, Anton Abdelahad, and Fred Elias at the Saint John’s Church Hall in August 1985.

Ten years later, on Christmas day 1995, Anton Abdelahad died in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. There are very few Arab American musicians Abdelahad had not played with by his career’s end. Instead of donations to his family, Adbdelahad requested that memorial contributions be made to Danny Thomas’s Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

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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