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The Lebanese Music Experiment: Disco and Nightlife During the Civil War

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Global Dance Cultures in the 1970s and 1980s

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Abstract

This chapter surveys the unlikely rise, survival and decline of disco in Lebanon during the Civil War, establishing an inextricable link between the genre and the era. It explores an effervescent scene rife with musical and cultural invention, where the local echo of global trends coincided with efforts to create a sound of its own. The chapter weaves discographic and musicological analysis with archival research and extensive interviews across the Lebanese Music Experiment: Disco and Nightlife During the Civil War. After introducing Lebanon as one of the Arab world’s most developed music hubs, the authors trace the story of early disco singles such as ‘Liza… Liza’ and ‘Abu Ali’ before chronicling the wider evolution of the genre as it took root, from Oriental-tinged covers to the emergence of ‘belly dance disco’.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This chapter is informed in large part by 19 extensive interviews conducted between September 2018 and October 2019 with a range of musicians, producers, DJs, record label executives, cinema archivists and other relevant players on the Lebanese disco scene, who shared their experiences and recollections and to whom the research presented here is heavily indebted: Ihsan AlMunzer, Abboudi Abou Jaoude, Abdallah Chahine, John Deacon, Joe Diverio, Issam Hajali, Rafic Hobeika’s daughter Joumana Hobeika, Jacqueline, Ghassan Khazoun, Diran Mardirian, Rustom Nayel, Gassan Rahbani, Jad Rahbani, Marwan Rahbani, Ziad Rahbani, Abboud Saadi, Ziad Sidawi, Mohammad Tamo and Raja Zahr. To aid readability, these are referenced throughout the text as ‘Interview, date’; if it is unclear who is speaking, we have added the person’s name in brackets.

  2. 2.

    Henceforth all translations are the authors’ unless otherwise stated.

  3. 3.

    John Deacon, EMI Lebanon’s 1970s managing director, believed the Beirut record pressing plant failed because of the ‘choice to manufacture only the dying seven-inch’ when cassette piracy was rife. This is noteworthy given the effects of piracy explored later in this chapter.

  4. 4.

    Though the record’s label says it was released in 1978, it actually wasn’t recorded until January 1979—an invoice in Mardirian’s archives confirms this.

  5. 5.

    Maalouf’s vocals were recorded at a studio in Montreal, where the singer had emigrated to, while the music was recorded by El Dick at Baalbeck Studios.

  6. 6.

    During this period, AlMunzer put his distinctive sound stamp on numerous pioneering records such as Mohammad Jamal’s ‘Doroup El Hawa’ and Mohamad ‘Mike’ Hijazi’s ‘Ohdonni Ya Habibi’, as well as for pop artists like Azar Habib, Sammy Clark and Nouhad Tarabie.

  7. 7.

    A traditional instrumental, popular in the early to mid-twentieth century among immigrant communities in the US. It resurged in popularity when Dick Dale’s surf adaptation was featured in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film Pulp Fiction.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. London, UK

    Natalie Shooter

Authors
  1. Natalie Shooter
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  2. Ernesto Chahoud
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK

    Flora Pitrolo

  2. Department of Contemporary History, Croatian Institute of History, Zagreb, Croatia

    Marko Zubak

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Shooter, N., Chahoud, E. (2022). The Lebanese Music Experiment: Disco and Nightlife During the Civil War. In: Pitrolo, F., Zubak, M. (eds) Global Dance Cultures in the 1970s and 1980s. Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91995-5_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91995-5_10

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-91995-5

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