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All Music Guide:
One of the first African musicians to gain widespread international recognition, Hamza El Din is a Nubian master of the oud, or the fretless lute. Western listeners are as likely as not to have been exposed to his work via the Grateful Dead, who played with him on-stage occasionally. (El Din also helped arrange the Dead's tour of Egypt.) He played an integral role in modernizing Nubian music, using his work to both evoke and tell stories of Nubian life.
El Din was originally trained to be an engineer, but changed direction and enrolled in the Middle Eastern School of Music, where he began to compose his own songs. On a fellowship to study Western classical music in Rome, he met American Gino Foreman, who exposed Hamza's work to Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. This resulted in a contract with Vanguard. His mid-'60s debut, Al Oud -- Instrumental and Vocal Music From Nubia, was one of the first "world music" recordings to achieve wide exposure in the West.
In the second half of the 1960s, El Din spent much of his time in America, living in guitarist Sandy Bull's apartment for a while. Taking a series of teaching positions in various American locations, he also found time to record a Nonesuch album in 1968, Escalay, that is considered one of the best documents of Nubian music. Eclipse is his most notable post-Escalay record, raising his profile in the U.S. when it was reissued on CD by Rykodisc.
Wikipedia:
Hamza El Din (July 10, 1929 – May 22, 2006) was a Nubian composer, oud player, tar player, and vocalist.
Early life [edit]
Born in the village of Toshka, near Wadi Halfa in southern Egypt, he was originally trained to be an electrical engineer. After working in Cairo for the Egyptian national railroad, El Din changed direction and began to study music at the Cairo University, continuing his studies at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome; he also studied in Ibrahim Shafiq's Institute of Music and the King Fouad Institute for Middle Eastern Music, and traveled in Egypt on a government grant collecting folksongs. His performances attracted the attention of the Grateful Dead, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan in the 1960s, which led to a recording contract and to his eventual emigration to the United States. Like much of Egyptian Nubia, his home village of Toshka was flooded due to the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s.
Career [edit]
Following his appearance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, he recorded two albums for Vanguard Records released 1964–65; his 1971 recording Escalay: The Water Wheel (published by Nonesuch Records) is recognized as one of the first world music recordings to gain wide release in the West, and was claimed as an influence by some American minimalist composers, such as Steve Reich and Terry Riley as well as Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart. He also performed with the Grateful Dead, most famously during their Egypt concerts of 1978. In this period, he also mentored a number of musicians, including Sandy Bull. Later, he released albums for Lotus Records and Sounds True. His album Eclipse was produced by Mickey Hart. He performed with the Kronos Quartet on an arrangement of Escalay in 1992. His pieces were often used in ballet performances and plays.
El Din held a number of teaching positions on ethnomusicology in the United States during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (in Ohio University, University of Washington, and the University of Texas at Austin), eventually settling in the Oakland, California after studying the biwa in Tokyo, Japan during the 1980s. In 1999, he released his last album, "A Wish".
Death [edit]
He died on May 22, 2006, after complications following surgery for a gallbladder infection at a hospital in Berkeley, California. He is survived by his wife, Nabra.
