By the time 1960 came along I was in my second decade of existence and eager to experience free love and long hair but, alas, the rest of my generation remained bottled-up within the rigid confines of conservative thought and behavior. So I started a flower-power movement of one, and lived to tell about it. With sideburns down to my nipples, and that ominous tan, I was quite a catch, and only by divine intervention escaped being snatched up by some girl. During the next few years I heard Elmore James, Chuck Berry, Elvis, and a host of unidentified artists whose musical influence I absorbed while maintaining my unique approach to music-making.
Then came the seventies: Dark Side of the Moon, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. My sideburns had reached down to my ankles by then, and still no takers. My reputation as the most eligible bachelor this side of Bourj Hammoud was in jeopardy. Something had to be done. I switched to the cave-man look: I cultivated a full beard and let my hair down - my nose alone managed to make itself visible amidst all the shrubbery. Miss J (fictitious initial) was the first unfortunate victim, and a brave soul she was. I was touched (finally). It was a brief fling and a herald of things to come.
AUB made the mistake of accepting me and I majored in the least demanding field I could find: English Literature. I composed the bulk of my repertoire in the classroom. My songs at the time were sung in English and composed in the vein of Blues and Rock music to which I listened 24/7. The lyrics invariably dealt with the break-up of a relationship in which I was an adoring Romeo and she was an undeserving tramp. This scene was to be repeated countless times during my hitherto short life, each aborted relationship giving birth to several songs.
By 1982 Beirut was in the throes of the unrelenting civil war which put Lebanon on the map, and everyone possessing the price of an airline ticket was making their way to the exits, as did I. When all the dust had cleared I was in California - a world away - and without an excuse behind which to hide. So I began to live. Life was good. Four years later I realized that I missed the Arabic language; the food; the music. I picked up a cookbook and a copy of Um Kulthoum’s "Daret El Ayyam", and my life was never the same again.
1986 saw the release of my first cassette (CDs were not born yet). Titled "Heik Ha Nishtghil ?", it became an instant success with members of the immediate family. I finally had me a Tin Record.
I returned to Beirut for the first time in the summer of 1987 and - at the behest of a great musician and friend (Walid Itayim) - performed at the Irwin Hall, BUC (now the LAU). Following that with concerts at West Hall, AUB, summer of 1988, and Gulbenkian theatre, BUC, summer of 1991, I was the only major news in the Beirut music scene. For lack of programming material on the nation’s only television station at the time, Tele Liban aired my AUB concert three times that year. It remains to be said that the Gulbenkian concert was attended by a person in the music business who realized the potential of my style, promptly copied it, and felt free to use it to jump-start his ailing career, inadvertently making public a style which I had fostered as a personal form of expression.
Meanwhile, back in the States, my son Jeremiah was born in 1992. My pride and joy, the crowning jewel of all my achievements on this earth, Jeremiah has grown into a real gentleman and enjoys the finer pleasures in life without a yearning for the cheesier things such as his peers continually seek. I have very high hopes for Jeremiah but I let him choose his own path and I am confident that he will not err.
And on that fateful day in the summer of 1994, secure in the knowledge that the war had ended and that Lebanon was in the good hands of fine, conscientious men who were preparing to patch up and repair it (to get it ready for the next round), I packed my guitars and boarded an airplane.
The CD you are holding in your hand (or someone else, somewhere, is holding in his/her hand) is the culmination of eight years of agonizing and grueling work. It was begun in 1995 and saw the light in 2003 after much obstruction and delay. During that time I watched from the perch of creative endeavor as alleged composers churned out cheap commercial songs, identical to each other in tempo, rhythm, arrangement, instrumentation, sonics, and lyrical content. Even more insulting to the senses were the morons and moronettes burping out those nauseating songs and prancing around in public like the brain-damaged idiots they are in private. Today we stand at the apex of this stressful nightmare, with no relief in sight. The radio stations are compensated generously for airtime as they inflict a daily barrage of worthless junk. Television stations bombard viewers with corny video clips as further proof of the depths to which this industry has sunk.
I, Tannin Al Tarab, proudly dissociate myself from the modern Lebanese music scene. My songs are simple, straightforward messages drawn from observations of Lebanese life in general. I use music that best befits the lyrics even if my sound is at complete divergence from what is hip at the moment.
Enjoy this CD. I plan to record two or three more and then retire to a life of quiet reflection, on a clean sandy beach, in a beautiful tropical island, far away from here.