About
Michel Merhej Baklouk Bio
Michel Merhej Baklouk is one of the pioneers of the world of rhythms and percussions in all its various and changing forms. His specialty is the riqq (tamborine), the instrument he used to govern the beat of the songs of the great singer Fairuz throughout her long and unique career. The riqq was also the shadow and loyal guard. “I always had my riqq on me, never left it anywhere or let anybody borrow it.”
This strong relationship between Baklouk and his riqq continues despite the changing times and work conditions. The Rahbani Brothers trusted him “to the point that I kept their original musical scores and distributed copies to the musicians.” He remembers the period of work with Fairuz and the Rahbani Brothers warmly but with a sense of loss of the golden age, the period he calls ”living with the brothers. He exclaims that the brothers loved their work, often stayed up nights for it, and consulted with those around them about it. And about Fairuz he says: ”she is very kind and she sings from her heart.”
Michel Baklouk is an experienced artist who is modest by his nature. He weaved throughout five decades of professional life, loving relationships with all the artists he worked with. He contributed to most of the musical activities as well as to teaching at the national conservatory. He still keeps his documents and has numerous students who acknowledge and appreciate him, as do his own teachers and colleagues. This is natural for an artist who proved his loyalty to his art and his colleagues.
But times have changed, as have values. Michel was surprised when the book Eastern Percussion Methods by Elie al-Faqih was published, reviewed by Walid Ghilmiyya, Director of the National Conservatory. The author, a former student of Baklouk, took the material taught by Baklouk and adopted it into a book but, unfortunately, without any credit or reference to his teacher. This is unlike Baklouk who always acknowledges his own teachers and colleagues. He taught at the conservatory for 26 years during a period where no other percussionist in the Arab world was capable of reading musical notation. Many excellent percussionists in the field today have graduated from his program and remember him kindly and lovingly.
Michel Baklouk, also known to many as Michel Mirhej, is the Lebanese riqq player of Palestinian origin who accompanied Fairuz for half a century. He grew in the institution of Lebanese music and lives his memories when he still occasionally connects with Fairuz in different parts of the world, such as when she called on him to come out of retirement to accompany her at recent concert in Tunis and Las Vegas.
Seventy-year old Baklouk still maintains a perfect beat despite his age and has been actively working in New York with Palestinian composer/performer Simon Shaheen since 1989. He maintains an active social life and cares for his family, including his grandchildren, like he did at his peak. He is concentrating on bringing the last daughter in Lebanon to join the family in New York. Amongst all this, Baklouk still remembers every small detail of his long journey, especially beautiful period of working with the Rahbani Brothers.
When asked about life in New York, the capital of the world, he answers very briefly that it is different from Lebanon. He feels that the Arab musicians are few and most are not formally trained to read music, and that the only active and rising ensemble is that of Simon Shaheen. His unenthusiastic short answer is expected from a person who lived during the rise of the artistic movement in Lebanon and made a contribution to it, as modest as that may have been in the shadow of the giants who crystallized that experience with their own efforts. Those include Assi al-Rahbani, Tawfiq al-Basha, and Halim al-Rumi, his first boss at the radio station in Jerusalem, where worked prior to migrations that led him, against his wishes, eventually to the land of Uncle Sam.
Michel Baklouk was born in Jerusalem in 1928. His father, died when he was only eleven, in the city of Safad in northern Palestine. That led to his transfer into a boarding Catholic school where he learned music. He reminisces those days: “we learned to use our fingers to represent the musical scale, five lines and four spaces.” He also learned singing at that school. “We chanted eight voices in religious and social occasions.” He graduated from school in 1945 and joined the Ministry of Works in Jerusalem and was assigned to the telephone services and then the YMCA across from the King David Hotel. He remembers the explosion at the hotel (by a Zionist terrorist group) and was injured because his work was very close. In 1947, he joined the Near East Radio, headed by Halim al-Rumi, as a telephone operator.
Michel Baklouk remembers that beginning as follows: “Mr. Rumi, the radio station manager, had heard that I play the tabla (hand drum) and noticed that I always tapped on my desk rhythmically. So he offered me to join the station’s orchestra, which was comprised of Arab and foreign musicians. Joining that orchestra was a tragic circumstance since the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 forced his foreign colleagues to leave. He then requested formal transfer from the administrative department to the music department. But the war intensified and the entire station was forced to relocate to Cyprus. In 1949 Michel moved to Cyprus via Beirut and worked at the station until 1953. “Our broadcast was live on the air with all the singers. The management of the music department was rotated between Sabri al-Sharif, Halim al-Rumi, and Abd al-Rahman al-Khatib, the brother of singer Fadya Kamel.”
In 1953, the orchestra moved to the station’s office in Beirut where Michel worked until 1956, the year the station was closed due to the Aggression of 1956 on Egypt. At about the same time, a recording studio company was started and headed by Sabri al-Sharif. Michel worked for that company until the British Broadcasting Corporation opened a facility for British war propaganda. Michel and many of his colleagues worked for the BBC until 1961 when they moved to the newly formed Lebanese radio station. In 1962, Michel started teaching percussion at the National Conservatory.
During this difficult journey, Michel accompanied the pioneers of the modern Lebanese song, a genre that grew out of folk music yet exposed to world cultures. He worked with Halim al-Rumi, Tawfiq al-Basha, Zaki Nasif, the Rahbani Brothers, Filimon Wahbi, and others. He expanded his work as the music movement in Lebanon also expanded, starting in 1957, participating in the Baalbak Festivals. He then worked with visiting artists such as the giant stars Mohammad Abd al-Wahhab, Farid al-Atrash, and others.
His primary work, however, was with the Rahbani Brothers and Fairuz, whom he first remembers as a choral singer in the radio station. “I was one of the musicians who were personally close to the brothers and Sabri al-Sharif since I could read music. I used to help them and still do. We had a warm and trusting relationship. They trusted me to bring them the needed musicians for projects without hesitation.” As for the relationship between the Rahbanis and their own colleagues, Michel remembers Filimon Wahbi who was a close friend of the Brothers and Fairuz. “Fairuz loved his compositions and was very conformable singing his songs.”
Baklouk continues reminiscing, “The Rahbanis loved their work and stayed up nights for it. They also tended to consult others to seek the most honest musical feeling in their work.” He said of Farid al-Atrash “he was a true friend, he cared for me and I gave him all he needed. He was a hard working man and always showed up before the orchestra members reported to work.” Baklouk also worked with Abd al-Halim Hafez, Mohammad Abd al-Wahhab, Warda al-Jazairyya, Suad Mohammad, Wadi’ al-Safi, Sabah, Majida al-Rumi (the boss’s daughter) and others. He remembers Fairuz, however, in a special way. “She was kind and sang from the heart.”
Michel also worked as a percussionist with the Palestinian couple Marwan Jarrar and his wife Badi’a who started a folk dance company for Lebanese dabka and supervised the folk arts part for the Baalbak Festival since its inception in 1957. He also worked with the most well known dancers of the time, including Tahiyya Karyoka, Samia Jamal, and Naima Akef.