Abdelwahab Doukkali
Late fifties of the last century. The country had just shaken off its fetters, found recklessness, lives life to the fullest catchy tunes. It rained heavily. Not a month went by without its share of melodies, and singers and musicians grew like primroses in spring. There was one side the "classics" like Ahmed Al Bidaoui, Amir Abdelwahab Agoumi or Abdessalam, jealous of the Arabic language and poetry enthusiasts, on the other, the "modern" which, in the image of Mohamed Fouiteh, Maâti Benkacem or Jabrane Ahmed, had taken advantage of Moroccan Arabic and jingle lightly. The two had in common to ride the romance. They had the song but not the plumage.
With their balding, their windows, their mustache and suits, they looked more like pen-leather only crooners kiss-curls crowds. They were rather on the side of Cairo. They called Fouad Abdel Halim Hafez and Moharram. But Abdelwahab Doukkali came to fill this serious gap in our music scene.
It is in a conservative religious family and he was born
Born twice, first in January 1941 and 7 of the same month, after a stay in an incubator, the man who was enjoying many lives was born in a family (13 children), modest and deeply religious. The father was a religious man, who behaved like a true patriarch, brooding offspring while never failing to reprimand the slightest indiscretion. For this man both loving and severe, Abdelwahab had a remarkable deference.
He kissed her hand day and night, brought him the ewer with meals and never permitted, even in adulthood, to smoke a cigarette in his presence. Docile, disciplined, good as gold at home, the child was transformed when he came out. Advantage of the absence of his father, he liked hanging around the streets of Fez profit, but he committing pranks.
"I remember the time I found myself Chqaf Ain, a few kilometers from Fez. I made a bet with friends cycling down from the top of the mountain. I failed in a river with a severe injury. Usually, I gave my father the tass.
He noted that that night I handed him his left hand. I had to admit my fault. I still have the memory of the correction I received, "recalls Doukkali Abdelwahab. Prodigal confessions, he likes to survey the land of his childhood to bring back the joy and happiness, as his first kiss Gathered in some luscious lips Sanaa, under the bombs of the French army.
Bold, it was revealed already focused on the fair sex, he revealed unvarnished. This does not prevent him, probably for fear of paternal wrath, to take the hard way to school and succeed Moulay Idriss honorably school. Without excessive zeal. The music was inhabited from an early age, the same name by the name of the great Egyptian composer.
He had promised to make its purpose. Meanwhile, he scratched like a madman on his lute wealth and vocalized wildly away from the paternal gaze.
The futurologist Mahdi Elmandjra encouraged him to take the road music
1959. At the age of eighteen years, Abdelwahab Doukkali found that it was time to take off. The climate of Fez was not conducive to the satisfaction of their ambitions singers. So he took his backpack and went to the adventure. In Rabat it landed. He quickly found a job with the RTM.
He immediately began to get bored farm. It was not built for the paperwork, so he hid it in the song, he pushed all day long. This was not the taste of Ahmed Al Bidaoui, his chief bogeyman. He sanctioned for nothing, if only for his habit of melon seeds.
However, Mahdi Elmandjra, then Director of RTM, fell in love for the youngster to promising talent. He strongly encouraged to follow the path on which he seemed so destined. Abdelwahab Doukkali did did not repeat twice. He headed for Casablanca, where the work was done musician.
As the hero Rastignac Balzac is the look of challenge that the future teen idol of all ages arrived at the bus station Benjdia. Seeing the imposing building Liberty, he promised his mother, who accompanied him, to acquire, one day, an apartment. He did a few years later. With an astonishing aplomb, he began to spread among the galaxy musical Casablanca. His arguments were convincing, but his fiery determination to upset the installed and seated. They did not opened their doors. Impressed by its address, Ahmed Tayeb El Alj, He did not hesitate to write the words of a refrain, Ya lghadi ftomobil, with whom he made his entrance on stage. A big splash and successful. We do not understand that the singer has denied this ode to the automobile, to which he owes his birth. When he says: "I regret a time when I had to sing songs that I did not want, in places that do not really worship me. I had by any means have my place in the sun, "without doubt he was wrongly in our view, allusion, among other things, his first song.
First of all, it upsets the proprieties stage
The fact is that Abdelwahab Doukkali quickly changed his tune. A Ya lghadi ftomobil Anti succeeded, Habibati, The tatroukini designed course in the romantic vein, but cast in a classical form of good quality. With these titles, the singer broke the house down too well ordered Moroccan song. It was agreed that until then politely stood on stage, we mimed or danced it in moderation, they opened their arms and bowed very low one. Certainty dynamited. Abdelwahab Doukkali tormented his lute, played the lyrics of his songs, had an intense, closed his eyes to better penetrate it and entered a trance, at times. He was represented throughout his performance. Purists would gauss. Especially since Doukkali hustled other conveniences, with its bit mad he tried to tame her incongruously watch worn on the right hand, and jewelry spread insolently. But it is precisely because of its disregard of standards that was praised to the skies by a youth who was his idol. To imitate it began to wear the watch on the right hand is used and abused the decrepit Stiff, how to get a smooth hair like hers, and Diamond whitening toothpaste.
Abdelwahab Doukkali came quickly in the legend. Some were relaxed. They had a sovereign contempt for the place of the "fop" adored by the "working girls" was a malicious release from the arrows in curare, just to debunk the statue which was raised by her fans. Exploiting his good fortune with the ladies, they spread the rumor that a girl was found dead outside his apartment. Larbi Sbaï, long his intimate ensures that did not eat this bread. It is true that Doukkali had a weakness for women, but not maintaining links, more or less stormy, with celebrities, including Sabah and Lebanese dancer Nadia Lotfi Egyptian. However, neither sarcasm nor slander, let alone the rivalry between Abdelhadi Belkhayat welled up and he did manage to break the momentum of Doukkali. Electron free, vibrio, elusive, always between two planes, two trains, two television interviews, he was going after his destiny flamboyant.
With Abdelhalim Hafez, it was bound by a stubborn enmity
Doukkali bothered, annoyed to the authorities, who dispatched of unwanted purgatory. Embittered, he resolved to go into exile. Cairo was his destination. The city proceeded under her feet the red carpet. He inherited from illustrious neighbors: the composer Baligh Hamdi Abdel Halim Hafez and star. With the first, the current passed, the second took him from the outset a dislike. Prelude to a stubborn enmity. The two men spent most of their time each scratch. Beatings, Doukkali was the winner.
Sbaï Larbi said that when they occur, competition forces in two separate locations, Hafez was snubbed by the public, while the latter rushed to Doukkali. It must be said that he had managed to win the heart of the Egyptians, even that of their icon, Nadia Lotfi, including Hafez was the seat unsuccessfully. For seven years, Cairo was at the feet of Doukkali. Yet one day he decided to return home.
Chiche and provides, according to the mood
It was the return of the prodigal son, that Doukkali sang a song in praise of King Hassan II, Habib Ljamahir. Followed by a melody taken over by no less than fifty Arab singers, Sabah in mind, Ma ana illa Bashar. Versatile, the author of Habibati had again changed course. With happiness.
The man who, treading the ground Casablanca, had vowed to buy an apartment building in Liberty, has acquired two, which must be added a pied-à-terre in Lalla Yacout Boulevard, a farm eight hectares out of Marrakech and a villa in the London suburb. Doukkali is not complaining about his financial situation. But he was ready avaricious tendencies.
A cookie parties he organized in Marrakech says he always manages to pay the musicians for its guests. Unlikely, argue his intimate, it would be rather generous. And listing his largesse towards new artists, his kindness toward Mohamed Lahyani when he was impecunious, its support for the comedian Ismail Yassin, when he found himself lost and penniless in Morocco.
Judgement contrast, then, but it is not surprising that it is both chick and provides, according to the mood of the moment, as it is waving.
Constant, however, it is in his love for his young wife and children and Aida Nour. Among them, he observes, what he claims, a retired mute, the top of which he examines the musical Moroccan deplores the lack of creativity of its peers, reduced to recycle old or tubes to go abroad venture into other lands. But Doukkali Abdelwahab, it can not be invented only once every twenty years, and more! A musician of this caliber is missing and then the whole music scene is depopulated. Kan ya ma kan ...
Et-Tayeb Houdaifa
Published on: 30/03/2007
http://www.lavieeco.com/Culture/quand-abdelwahab-doukkali-lancait-la-nouvelle-vague
