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The year is 2017,
I’m in the middle of a long and winding road towards my first original album and on a long and strenuous tour of recording and productions. As these things go, especially in our little magical realm of music, one thing leads to another, and in the spring I find myself on a short visit to Palestine’s West Bank.
All the stereotypes were there – roadblocks, walls, guns, soldiers, protests, what-have-you’s… but there was also incredible talent, great optimism, and a deep and meaningful story to be told.
Over the next few months, I found myself diving deeper and deeper into the local music scene, and developing true artistic partnerships with some of its most dominant players – Maestro John Handal, who’s been my guide and guardian through this whole journey, Ayman Mghames, my dear friend and colleague, who’s been the mastermind behind many of the following projects, and a host of wonderful musicians.
In an ensuing couple of years, we tried together to find the right way to portray and convey the Palestinian message through modern musical production.
It’s a tough task indeed – how do you take an ancient and cherished tradition, weave it through a tumultuous, ultra-complex modern political and social situation, and then channel it through an aesthetic production, good enough for a global audience?
Well, we really tried our best… With a multitude of trials, and a megatude of errors, we worked and re-worked songs, videos, and cultural events. We aimed high with productions like Lina Sleibi’s Fi Mahal, but also wide with collaborations such as the amazing Palestinian Music Expo.
We brought our skills and efforts to Gaza and endevoured in high-end productions in the midst of the world’s craziest conflict zone…
The album mentioned on the first paragraph is “The Road Not Taken”, Johno’s debut album. Listen above!
Johno
Some things worked, and some clearly didn’t, but all in all, it proved very difficult and demanding – on time, and on budget. But luckily, another great thing happened in my life during these months and years – Tiny Desk 🙂 and of course the likes – KEXP, Colour Sessions, Barnyard, Take-Away, and more… Slowly but surely, the realisation started sinking in – that perhaps we don’t have to work so hard, and produce so much, and spend all that energy and those resources on embellishing the story into a high-end, all-out, narrative video production.
Perhaps all these wonderful artists need is an open mic, a running camera, and a nice simple musical arrangement.
Maybe, the story is best told and the message is best portrayed like this – simply, intimately, authentically, and directly. So we decided to give it a shot.
We called on three of our favourite singers – Lina Sleibi, Rola Azar, and Milad Fatouleh, and prepared 2 songs for each, accompanied by only 2 instruments – John Handal on percussion, and myself on guitar/piano.
We then invited our favourite filming crew to help us with the visual package – Kleopatra Korai and Michael Tebinka, and enlisted the help of many local friends, to make this really happen in the best way possible. Tariq Elayyan, who owns a gorgeous cafe and a hip little pub in Beit Sahour, gave us our first locations (and a much-needed draft beer), Aref Sayed, who’s a wonderful local instrument builder, welcomed us into his magnificent workshop for another shoot (parrot included), and a generous and super hospitable local team of friends like Tamer Samir and Marian Sayeh Handal made sure we’re always well kept, well-groomed, and well-fed.
So now, in the spring of 2020, almost three years after my journeys in Palestine begun, we’re all very excited (I’m even pretty overwhelmed) to be bringing out these first batch of Delia Sessions videos.
Have we achieved our goals here – you’ll be the judge. Have we had fun attempting them – by god we did 🙂
Should this go well, and should these videos be well-received (shared, forwarded, liked, streamed, whatever), we do promise to bring out many more of them, from the West Bank, Gaza, and any other place that we’ll be invited (does anyone live in a conflict zone by any chance? -:)
All the best, and sincerely hope you enjoy!
Johno.