Music never ceases to amaze me in all its technicolour glory and I never realised that Iranian pop sounded soooo absolutely gorgeous!..but here we go! This is magic!!
Abbas Mehrpooya was born in Tehran in 1927 and spent his life expressing his artistic inclinations through poetry, acting and as a multi-instrumental musician – mastering the guitar, sitar, santur and organ. Introducing the sounds of the sitar to the popular music of Iran, he was known to utilise old traditions into new sounds and often used instruments such as bones or pots for percussion! His talents didn’t stop there, however, and he was also composed and performed music and songs for the Iranian cinema. One of which was the 1952 film series Battle with Satan and The Love Thief!
It’s hard to track down dates and histories of his discography, partly because many of the track listings I’ve searched through are not written in English! So, all I can tell you about today’s song, Dokhtare Shab, is that it was probably released sometime between 1960 and the late 1970’s!
These dates coincide with a very special era in Iran when a large community of pop stars began to emerge. For a short space of very sacred time this music flourished, before vanishing into oblivion. Thanks to labels like Spain’s Vampi Soul, this music has been captured and reissued in what I have just discovered is a 28-track offering called, Rangarang – Pre-Revolutionary Iranian Pop.
In the write-up that accompanies this interesting collection, the label describes what was happening with the music at the time and explains how:
These songs tell the stories of an artisan community that flourished during the 1960s and 1970s before vanishing into oblivion. The pop stars who stayed in Iran were summonsed to the revolutionary court and forced to sign a declaration promising to abandon their careers and never perform again. By the time an exilic music industry had been established in Los Angeles, where many musicians settled after fleeing the chaotic disarray of post-revolutionary war-torn Iran, the beats and melodies of the monarchist era had given way to the synthesizers of the 1980s and Iranian pop music would never be the same again. The range of the tracks included on “Rangarang” is astonishing, from funky workouts and soulful pop to jazzy grooves and yearning ballads, all wonderfully and imaginatively produced and arranged, giving shape to truly popular music.
This record also features today’s song, so I obviously couldn’t help but share the whole album below!! It’s so good!! I hope you enjoy today’s song as much as me and feel the uncontrollable urge to explore more…just as I am now! Enjoy!
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