Rising Star

By Yasseen

I miss my friends at Appleton and I miss the milk. There's no milk like Appleton, Wisconsin, milk, says Rula Zaki.

Rula, 29, a rising star amongst Egypt's singers, tells us in her best known song that we live on an indivisible planet."Love the world, we are one," runs the lyric her father, Galal, wrote for her. It commemorates 9/11 and is a message of love and peace to the US and the world.

Rula sang it originally at the Cairo American College (CAC) 9/11 anniversary and then at the Maadi Community Church and the American University in Cairo (AUC) reunion. She also sang it at a British Embassy fund raising event to send Egyptian Special Olympics entrants to the games in Ireland.

Rula, who is from a Muslim family, is herself proof of the indivisibility of mankind. She sings Western melodies with the same verve and polish she devotes to the quarter tones of Arab music.

She sings in ten languages: Arabic, English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, Korean and Hindi. But, perhaps most surprisingly for someone who can sing to Arab-style music, she received her education and voice and musical training almost entirely in US institutions.

What is she up to now?

She recently sang on Egypt's Starmaker TV programme, which is similar to American Idol in the US. She sang , "You needed me", by Ann Murray, and "Its Impossible", a version of which was once sung by Perry Como. The producers put Arabic words to the tune. Then she sang an Arabic song to Arab music , "Meen ily goa fi alby (Who is in my heart).

"The program was aired throughout the Arab world and a woman in Saudi Arabia wrote a poem and asked me to sing it and do a video clip for her dad's birthday. I'm still working on the tune."

Three people are helping her to make a tape in Arabic: a lyricist--Baha El-Din Mohammed--who has written songs for two famous Egyptian singers, Amr Diab and Samira Sa'eed, and two others who are working on the tunes and arrangements..

She also now sings at the Peking Restaurant in Cairo's Ma'adi suburb on Monday evenings and does a karaoke show at the Nile-side Hard Rock Café with her husband. "He is the karaoke jockey and I am the host. I sing three songs."

She is the mother of a two-year-old baby boy, Karim, whom her husband and parents take care of when she is away in a studio or at a performance.

She began her school and singing career at the Cairo American College (CAC) where Larry P. Catlin, the school's Director of Music, was her music teacher and private vocal teacher for seven years.

Rauf Zaidan, the founder of Cairo's New Opera House Choir, worked with her from 1982 when she was nine. Her voice, he said, had "all the makings of a magnificent natural soprano" and she sang at the Cairo Opera House as a young child.

While still at school she gave soprano solo performances in the Faure Requiem (Pie Jesu) and the Vivaldi 'Gloria' (Domine Jesu). She also performed in the operas, 'The Merry Widow' and 'Carmen,' as well as the musicals 'Starlight Express' and 'Carnival'. The climax came with a stunning performance in a school production of "My Fair Lady" which brought her acclaim beyond the walls of the school.

The school's Music Director "took me to New York where I stayed with his parents and went to the Crane School of Music. His parents were good people. They really looked after me. I was 12, the youngest in the school. I won an award as the most outstanding vocalist."

In High School she was offered seven scholarships to reputable US universities to study music. She and her parents and music advisers plumped for Lawrence University in a small, quiet town-- Appleton, Wisconsin. There, on a four-year-scholarship, she obtained a Bachelor of Music degree in 1995.

Since then she has taken the lead roles, acting and singing, in Walt Disney's Arabic version of 'Little Mermaid', 'Toy Story 2' and 'Cinderella'. She sang at the opening of the 36th International Advertising World Congress (IAA) in Cairo, in May 1998 and at the launch of Egypt's First Lady's 'Give a Kid a Hand' worldwide campaign.

She has sung professionally for TV and radio in Egypt, Jordan and the USA as well as acted and sung in numerous TV commercials. While at school she won the Arion award for vocal music and she was the Grand Prize Winner of the Cairo 2000 International Song Festival.

"My dream is to tour the US and Europe and sing for love and peace. I feel our part of the world has been negatively stereotyped."

She says she never felt foreign in the US. Her time at CAC and her travels to other American schools in Europe – in The Hague, Vienna, Belgium and London— to take part in honor choirs helped her to fit in easily.

Her CAC High School fees were very high by Egyptian standards, she says, and once she couldn't afford to go on an honor choir trip for which she had been chosen. "My chemistry teacher, Marcia Mett, paid for me. I'll never forget her kindness."

She is still in touch with Marcia and the Schultz family of Appleton, "They sort of adopted me. I made a lot of friends. People would ask me where I came from and when I told them Egypt, they'd say, 'Wow!' and start talking. I'm still in touch with many of them .

"We e-mail and telephone each other. The Schultzes came to visit us and we went to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean coast together. They loved it and want to come again."

Yasseen is the author of a coming-of-age story called 'Emigrating Home', which takes you from his birthplace, Jamaica, a British colony at the time, to his schools in Britain, and to the home he did not know, in Egypt. Born a dual British-Egyptian national, he was called into the armies of his two countries when they were in conflict. The experience spreadeagled him across a divide and Yasseen often felt akin to the mythical Jason and the Argonauts in his travels. You can visit Yasseen at www.emigratinghome.com.

Good Company, Part II, Spending Time with Colin Hay

"One of the most frustrating things…is that I've been making records for the last twenty years but people have only had one album. In many parts of the world, that first album is all people have heard."

But Colin Hay has a lot more to offer than just "Who Can it Be Now?", "Be Good Johnny", and "Down Under". His solo albums seem to have gotten lost in the wave of grunge inspired groups and candy coated teen music that dominated the nineties. With seven solo efforts under his belt and an eighth pending imminent release, the man whose group jumpstarted the flood of Australian musical exports of the eighties seems happy and satisfied with his current status in life.

Men at Work featuring Colin Hay, arrived at the Hotel Belfort in Medellin, several hours later than originally planned. Tired and exhausted after the aiport delays, Colin Hay still managed to win over the Medellin press with the same laid back style and humour that characterised the Men at Work interviews of the early to mid eighties. "I must say something like this hasn't happened since 1983," he joked looking around at the small group of reporters. Sporting a Hawaiian shirt and trademark sunglasses with his Scottish roots distinctly noticeable in his accent, he sat down for his first press conference in Medellin, Colombia; the middle stop on the band's three day tour of the country.

"Can I ask you why people always ask that question?" he replied to an inquiry about what fans could expect from the evenings show, laughing off his own sarcastic retort in a good natured fashion. "Every single place you go in the world, people (always ask that question) and I always wonder why?" I cautiously looked around to see how the group of Colombians, most of whom did not speak English fluently were receiving the brand of humour that most of us in the English world take for granted.

"I hope to have fun…and have some kind of connection," he finished sincerely, making a veiled reference to the title track from his new album Company of Strangers which is about the interaction between the audience and the performer.

It's refreshing to meet someone like Colin Hay who, despite the fact that he is nowhere near the status he achieved in the early eighties, continues to create original music and songs that have a unique style and quality about them. In addition, he seems content with his current life and what it has to offer. His respect for the beauty of the world and appreciation for the both good and the bad that it has to offer is evident in many of his lyrics, and in his ability to poke fun at himself. The name of his production label, "Lazy Eye Records", seems to be a natural extension of this philosophy.

"It (life) feels better than the past. The past wasn't that good." It was just difficult working with the same group of guys for years on end, he added. That being said, Colin Hay and Greg Ham toured Latin America for six years in the nineties writing and performing new songs which were originally intended to be included on a new Men at Work album. Unfortunately, that album never emerged, but Mr. Hay ensured the audience that that did not eliminate the possibility of a future Men at Work venture.

The concert itself was a nice mix of new and old tunes. The program was not driven by raucous staged theatrics or wild guitar solos, but by the solid performance of competent musicians, engaging the crowd with their music rather than their antics. At one point, after several slower introspective numbers, which featured Colin on acoustic guitar, he thanked everybody for being patient listening to his new music.

The new tunes, in fact sound great. The man's voice is still solid and his song writing skills tell personal tales expressed with emotive images. The sea is a recurring symbol in his music harking back to his Scottish roots as well as his Australian ones. As well, many of his songs examine the role of the traveller; the man who may have a home to come back to, but not to stay for any great length of time.

The band was accompanied by the backing vocals of the energetic Cecilia Noël from "Cecilia Noël and the Wild Clams". The clams sing, what Cecilia calls, SalSoul, a mixture of classic seventies soul and Latin Salsa rhythms. More information on Cecilia Noël's group can be found at www.wildclam.com .

For those not familiar with Colin Hay's solo career, his acoustic album, Going Somewhere, has a great retrospective of tunes written since the days of Men at Work. The intention of this album was to capture the intimate feel of the acoustic performances which people rave about.

The new Colin Hay album Company of Strangers will be available September 9 and can be purchased through www.colinhay.com. The site also has some interesting biographical information, samples from many of his past solo albums, and a description of the new album.

ScribeCentral.com and Ted Langlais would like to thank Camilo Pava and Super Estacion 92.9 from Medellin for making this article possible.

Ted Langlais currently resides in Medellin, Colombia where he teaches high school and writes about his experiences in Latin America.

Good Company, Rediscovering the Music of Colin Hay

I remember buying the ’45 of “Who Can it Be Now?” in the fall of 1982. A few weeks later I purchased the cassette of Business as Usual. I was twelve years old and this was the first album I bought, the first music that was mine and not my parents. I spent most of the winter playing the album on what was called, in those days before the winds of Political Correctness had swept over North America, a “ghetto-blaster”. For all the play that that tape got throughout the eighties, I was totally amazed that it still played this summer when I dug it out of a pile of other old cassettes. I was even more intrigued by how well some of the old songs still stand up after all these years, especially considering how dated many of the tunes from that period sound today.

When I mentioned to my friend that I might have the chance to interview Colin Hay, the first thing he said was that he still had that album on vinyl even though he has not had a record player for years. In fact, Business as Usual is really the quintessential music moment for most of us in our early thirties. It was the record that separated our taste in popular culture from those who came before us, the beginning of our journey down the road to self-discovery of what would become our musical interests for the rest of our lives.

It has always disappointed me that Men at Work never made more albums. The reggae inspired and Sax driven numbers of Business as Usual and Cargo have really made a place in the hearts of many from my generation. Years later we still know all the lyrics, the refrains, and the solos.

Three years ago when Men at Work, actually Greg Ham and Colin Hay, made their way to El Salvador, I almost didn’t buy tickets because my first response was “yet another washed up band touring Latin America to pay the bills”. It was only after a few days of recalling the role their music had played in my formative years that I called up my friend and asked her to purchase a ticket for me too.

Far from the disappointment I expected, Colin Hay and Greg Ham, along with the three younger Men at Work recruits put on a wonderful show, still playing the classics with zest after all these years and sharing some newly written material as well.

I spent three years waiting for these songs to appear on a new Men at Work album, but it never emerged. During his Medellin press conference Colin Hay confirmed the intention of incorporating these songs into a new album but confessed that the album just never came together.

Instead, Colin is back touring Latin America with his Electric Band, playing new songs alongside the old.

And some of the stuff Colin has written since the Men at Work days stands up with the best pop songs of the past twenty years. His laid back style, especially prominent in his acoustic album, fills a niche that has been empty for a decade. It appeals to those of us who don’t want to listen to heavy guitar songs or Britney Spears/Backstreet Boys drivel; those of us who just never fell into the hip hop sound and outgrew the college scene after 1993.

His lyrics celebrate life, even in those songs that deal with serious issues. Solid depictions of moments in time without preaching about the media, politics, or current crises around the world. They are short, easy listening pieces, without pretension, whose choruses and rhythms stay with you when the song is done. The kind of music that you feel yourself humming on your way to work.

After twenty years of listening to pop music, starting with Business as Usual and moving through periods where the message was the most important thing, or the complexity of the composition was what determined a masterpiece, I have come full circle back to the kid who bought his first ’45 and just want to listen to something that felt good, something that the artist has taken seriously in the production, but not something that is going to bash one over the head with its socio-political preaching or blow one's ear drums with five minutes racing guitar solos. And Colin Hay has become one of those artists.

For those of you who have not enjoyed any of his post-Men at Work material, I recommend his acoustic album, Going Somewhere for starters. It has a nice retrospective of his solo career redone in a simple guitar/voice format. His new album, recorded with his Electric Band, Company of Strangers also has some great tracks and will be on sale from his website, September 9. Check out www.colinhay.com for more information about the man and his music, as well as selections of lyrics and samples from his albums.

Part II of this article deals with the Colin Hay press conference in Medellin and the Men at Work concert at La Macarena, La Plaza de Toros.

Ted Langlais currently resides in Medellin, Colombia where he teaches high school and writes about his experiences in Latin America.