Radiodiffusion Internasionaal Annexe

♬ Katanga / كاتانگا

Abbas Mehrpouya / عباس مهرپویا was born in Tehran, Iran on July 27, 1927

Long before Grey Past released the “Raks Raks Raks” compilation or Finders Keepers released the “Pomegranates” compilation, my first introduction to Persian music was a CD-R I got from a guy in the Netherlands. The record cover above was used as the cover for that disc. Since that time, many Irani compilations and re-issues have been released – most notably is Mehpouya’s “Sitar” album.

This song is unique since it starts with Johann Sebastian Bach‘s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor“.

Unlike most of the artists I have covered, there is plenty of information about Abbas Mehrpouya available. There is a Wikipedia page, but it is in Farsi. There is also a website – also in Farsi and the text cannot be converted in an online translator. There is an excellent article about the man on The Persian Mag website in English with some amazing pictures from his travels around the world – and an outtake from the photo session for the record cover above.

Catalog number SARE-1027 Ahang Rooz of Iran. Released 1973.

♬ Bella’s Daughter / دختر بلا

This is the sole release by Gypsy Group – also seen transliterated as Kolina Group. The singer / composer was William Khenno who also wrote songs for Googoosh, Fereydoun Foroughi, Ramesh and more.

If you have any further information about this artist or anything else about this recording, please leave it in the comment section below.

Catalog number AR-2328 on Ahang Rooz or Tehran, Iran. No release date listed.

♬ Taqdim Bimadir

This single is the only recording released by the Tehran Boys. The voice on this track is Asadollah Peyman – who had done narration on a few films in Iran during the late 50s / early 60s. He is reciting a poem written by Fereydoon Moshiri.

If you have any further information about this artist or anything else about this recording, please leave it in the comment section below.

Catalog number 7021 on Farooshgah Firdousi / فروشگاه فردوسی of Tehran, Iran. No release date listed.

♬ Effect / اثر

Esfandiar Monfaredzadeh / اسفندیار منفردزاد was born in Tehran, Iran. He is a film composer, songwriter and filmmaker.

He started his career early the late 1950s with the National Iranian Radio Children’s Program. He work his way up to the Youth Orchestra of National Iranian Radio and was eventually put in charge of all the music arrangement and the conductor duties.

From an early age, he was fascinated by cinema and filmmaking. He shared this dream with his lifelong friend Masoud Kimiai who eventually became a film director, screenwriter and producer. In 1967, Masoud Kimiai got a chance to direct his first film, Come Stranger, and Monfaredzadeh was asked to compose the score. Their second collaboration – 1969’s Qeysar / قیصر – was a box office success. Monfaredzadeh won the Best Film Score award for Qeysar at the second Sepas Awards ceremony – which would be repeated the following year for their collaboration Reza Motorcyclist / رضا موتوری. That same year, Monfaredzadeh joined the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults where he contributed to establish the Children’s Film Training Center as well as writing music for audio books, animations and short films produced by the institute.

In 1972, Kimiai asked Monfaredzadeh to compose the soundtrack to the film Baluch / موزیک متن – their fifth film working together – which is the single posted above. All four songs have the same title: “Effect” / “اثر”.

In 1973, he was sentenced to prison for his social and political ideas. However, after his release he would not remain silent and with his film and music, he accompanied and supported people in the upcoming revolution.

Monfaredzadeh is still active as of this posting. You can find out more about him as well as his film and music at his website (which is all in Farsi) here: https://www.monfaredzadehmusic.com/

Catalog number Catalog number ۰۰۱۹۰۵/۹۰۲۰۴۲ on Disco record of Iran. Released 1972.

♬ If You Help Me / اگه یارم بشی

Afshin Moghaddam (Hossein Ahanian Moghaddam) was born in Tehran, Iran in 1945. He was best known for his song “Zemestoun“, which which is considered one of the “100 Greatest Iranian Songs of All-Time”. Moghaddam was killed in a car accident whilst traveling to Amol in 1976.

Surprisingly, this song was not included on either the “Raks Raks Raks” or the “Persian Underground” compilations.

Released on 6 & 8 Records of Iran. No catalog number or release date listed.

♬ گل مریم

Giti Pashaei (گیتی پاشایی ) was born on June 13, 1948 in Tehran, Iran. She apparently inherited her passion for music from her grandfather, Jafar Mansoori, who was a well known poet and musician. Her early life was spent attending the master-classes of such musicians as Faramarz Paywar, Mahdi Foroogh and Mahmoud Karimi. Giti continued her education in New York, where she earned a degree in architecture from CUNY. She also studied “orchestration and harmony” while in Seattle, Washington.

Giti would go on to become one of the most popular Iranian singers. Her biggest hit was the song “گل مریم” – “Gol-e Maryam” or “Maryam Flower” – which was released in 1971. But the Iranian Revolution put an end to her singing career in 1979, since women were now forbidden to sing in public. She made the transition to composer, and scored soundtracks for a number of Iranian movies – many of which were directed by her husband, Masoud Kimiai. She also acted in a handful of films as well. In the late 1980s she moved to Hamburg, Germany where she researched Western Religion and Baroque Music. After moving back to Tehran, Giti died of cancer on May, 7th of 1995. She was buried at Behesht-e Zahra.

Thanks to Ramin and Jesse Kaminsky for helping with the translation and information.

Catalog number ۱۵٢٧٧۴ on Apolon of Iran, released 1971.

♬ زسفربرگرد

When I started putting together the box set that eventually evolved – some would say mutated – into this site, there was practically nothing on pre-revolution Persian pop music. No information, no recordings, no nothing. I did manage to find a Fereydoun Farrokhzad CD that had one of his old singles on it and a CD-R of Mehrpouya‘s first album. Also at that time, Psyche Van Het Folk had a fairly limited page of information. But that was it.

But in the last few years, there has been a small but somewhat steady stream of releases that have become available. First was the Raks! Raks! Raks! compilation on Discos Raks. Not too long after, the Persianna label mysteriously appeared and released compilations of Golden Ring and The Rebels, as well as Mehrpouya’s Jumbo Africa album. And then last year, Finders Keepers‘ Pomegranates compilation was released.

This single is by Aref & Ramesh, and I am pretty sure the backing band was Golden Ring – who backed Aref on a number of his early singles. Both Aref and Golden Ring have been covered previously on this site, but I have not been able to find hardly anything on Ramesh. In the liner notes for the Pomegranates compilation, she is referred to as “This elusive rocker has been spotted in 70s teen-zines in Iran decked in everything from paisley-pretty to biker-chic“.

Thanks to Gökhan Aya for the translation of the Farsi.

Catalog number AJ 4303 / RT 2286 on Royal of Iran. No release date listed.

♬ گل پژمرده شهر پاییز

This week’s post comes to us from Jesse Kaminsky. His weekly radio show – The Intercontinental – can be heard on WMBR in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For those of us who do not live within range, the show is available as a podcast. He also has a rather extensive collection of Iranian singles.

Information on the popular music of pre-revolutionary Iran is hard to come by if you don’t read Farsi. Most reissues of the music are in Farsi and have little to no liner notes, save for Göhkan Aya’s well researched essay for the Raks Raks Raks compilation released last year on Raks Discos. This is perhaps due in part to the political situation surrounding the music and culture, much of what was recorded prior to the 1978 revolution became illegal with the new regime and was destroyed when found by the police. Performers who had substantial careers prior to the revolution had to flee the country or risk persecution as even the simple act of a woman performing as a soloist became illegal, not to mention the performance of westernized Persian music that had become increasingly popular under the last years of the Shah. Records that you find now from that period in Iran have likely survived many hardships and they almost always show it in one way or another.

Stuart has already covered much of the cultural history of Iran in his previous posts so I’ll leave that for now and say that this track from the singer Pouran. She began singing in 1951 at the age of 18, using the stage name of “Unknown Lady” or “Lady Anonymous Singer, ” depending on how you translate the Farsi. She married her vocal instructor, violinist Abbas Shapouri, and altered her stage name first to “Lady Shapouri, ” then to the simpler “Pouran, ” collaborating with Shapouri for the duration of their seven-year marriage to produce some of her most popular songs. At the height of her career, she was well regarded as an actress and singer, possibly recording as many as 2000 songs, although that’s really an impossible number to confirm. After her divorce, she continued to perform and record, often appearing on Iranian National Radio, until the late 70’s, when the revolution forced her to stop performing and flee the country. She died in 1991 during a visit to Iran and is buried in the Imamzadeh Taaher cemetery in the city of Karaj.

As an example of the difficulty in finding information on this era of recorded music, this line from the Google translation of her Wikipedia page jumped out at me: “Art said his toe in Salt Lady nephew heartsome other is born of that era” in reference to her musical association with her first husband.

Without much of a discography available, I’d guess that this record is from the later part of her career. It’s released on Ahang Rooz, the first and largest of pre-revolutionary Iranian record labels, and has the analog synthesizer sound that seems to have enjoyed some popularity in the later 70’s. The single includes the two songs: “Shahr-e Paeez” (The City of Autumn) and “Ye Roozam Maa Ra Faramoosh Mikoni” (One Day You Will Forget Me).

Thanks to Hamineh, Kourosh and Ramin for their help on this post as well as for all the other information that they’ve helped me with. Any factual errors or misunderstandings are mine.

Catalog number AR-2519 on Ahang Rooz of Iran. No release date listed.

♬ Dar Aseman Ashq-e-man

♬ Shirley

The British Invasion was the term applied by the news media – and subsequently by consumers – to the influx of rock and roll, beat and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in not only in the United States, but in Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well. But the music was popular all over the world, and influenced musicians everywhere.

One of the more interesting places that these influences turned up, at least in my opinion, was Iran. Iran’s openness to The West in the 60s and 70 was due most in part to the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – that is until the Islamic Revolution of 1979. But up until that time, there was a scene in Tehran with a handful of bands and small record labels – that not only released local music but music from America and Europe as well.

Although I have seen the name of this band transliterated as Ojubeha, Ojoobe-Ha, Aajubehaa Ajoobehaa and Ajubehaa, the most common version seems to be Ojoobeha. But the name translates from Farsi into English as The Remarkables. To the best of my knowledge, they only recorded two singles, both for the Ahang e Rooz label. Their lead singer was Jamshid Alimorad, who went on to become an actor and have a solo career. He currently resides in New York City and still performs live around the U. S. His most recent album Jashn Maa (Celebration) was released in 2007.

Ojoobeha, as well as Flowers, Golden Ring, Googoosh, Kurush, Littles, Maha Jamin, The Rebels, Shabah and a number of others are featured on the recently released compilation Raks! Raks! Raks! on Discos Raks – the same people who produced the Waking Up Scheherazade compilation.

Catalog number ۲۰۹۵۱ on Iran Gram Co. of Tehran, Iran. No release date listed. This single was also released by the Ahang e Rooz label in 1971. Which pressing was released first is unknown.

♬

♬

It seems like almost every other week or so, I will stumble upon another blog that focuses on African music. I would say that its much less frequent for Asian music… Maybe once a month at best. But the lack of blogs or websites or what have you that feature the music of the Middle East never ceases to amaze me. There are a few… But not that many. And of the six or seven I can name off the top of my head, three are dedicated to the music of Iran.

The Golden Age of Persian pop music started as early as the 1950s under the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. During his rule, there was an emergence of a new Western-influenced middle class. Soon, record labels started popping up.

The first label in Iran was Ahang (“song”) in 1959 and pressed their records in Germany. Ahang records were distributed by the Beethoven Music Center based on Manuchehri Ave. in Tehran and owned by Karim Chamanara. By the following year, they were issuing more than two hundred records 45 rpm 7″ records. Six years later, the label change its name to Ahang e Rooz (“song of the day”).

Royal Records was probably the second largest label in Iran. They began by releasing more traditional Persian music on 78 discs, then reproducing old recordings in the 45 rpm format. Eventually Royal, as well as Ahang and a handful of other labels, started to release new recordings of different artists and in all genres of Persian music – including the new “Beat music”.

There were a number of Beat groups in Iran, including Flowers, Golden Ring, Littles, Maha Jamin, Ojoobeha (Remarkables), The Rainbow, The Rebels, Shabah. And while there is little information beyond a few photos and sound files, I have read accounts of Ojoobeha riding camels to the stage and The Rebels cruising around Tehran in a black Cadillac convertible. But beyond that… There is not a whole lot. I know that Golden Ring released at least two singles other than the one posted here. They were also the backing band for Aref on some of his earlier singles. The Rebels, also known as The Rebels 5 and The Rebel Kings, released at least three singles – one with a cover of The Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There” and another with a version of The Rolling Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper”. As for the rest, I have only seen one single by each of them.

Surprisingly, there has yet to be a compilation of any of the music, Beat or otherwise, from Iran from this time period on up until the revolution of 1979. I’ve heard rumors that at least three different people that I know of who are working on compilations. But if and when any those will ever see the light of day remains a mystery.

Thanks to Gökhan Aya for translating the Farsi for me.

Catalog number RT 1869 on Royal Records of Iran. No other information available.