Salim Rashid Suri
Salim Rashid Suri (between 1910 and 1912, Sur, Oman–1979, Sur, Oman)[1] was a 20th-century ṣawt singer and oud player from Oman. He is particularly associated with the ṣawt genre called Ṣawt al-Khaleej ("Voice of the Gulf").
Salim Rashid Suri worked as a teen on sailing ships plying the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. He first started as a maidan singer; he learned ṣawt by listening to phonograph records of performances by Abdullatif al-Kuwaiti.[2][3] Continuing to travel widely, he became known as "The Singing Sailor".[2]
Salim Rashid Suri's family was conservative and did not approve of his musical inclinations; his brother even threatened to shoot him if he didn't stop singing.[1][2][3] He consequently moved to Mumbai where he worked first as a boilerman then as a mercantile broker and translator in the trade between Arab and Indian merchants.[1] During this time Salim Rashid Suri continued to practice and perfect his musical art, integrating Indian influences into his music – some of his lyrics were in Urdu as well as Arabic,[3] and this helped his records (he recorded twelve 78 rpm shellac gramophone records in the early 1930s)[1] sell well to an Indian as well as an Arabic audience.[1][2]
In 1943, Salim Rashid Suri married an Indian woman and in the late 1940s he and his wife relocated to Bahrain where he enjoyed success as a performer and set up his own record label and recorded other musicians. He continued to be a leading creator and exponent of the Ṣawt al-Khaleej ("Voice of the Gulf") variety of ṣawt. However, the advent of vinyl records ruined his record business and he returned to Oman in 1971 where the Sultan made him a consultant for cultural affairs. He died in 1979, considered by then a beloved cultural treasure of Oman.[1][2][3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Rolf Killius. "The Singing Sailor, Salim Rashid Suri: A Ṣawt Musician from Oman". Qatar Digital Library. Qatar National Library. Retrieved November 30, 2014.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 "The singing sailor of Oman". Round The Bend. BBC. Retrieved November 30, 2014.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Margaret Makepeace (November 26, 2013). "The Singing Sailor - Salim Rashid Suri". Untold Lives Blog. British Library. Retrieved November 30, 2014.