Today, Thursday, July 22, marks the 82nd anniversary of the birth of the late artist Warda Al-Jazaery, who was born on this day in 1939. Her artistic success story began with the song "Ya Mourouh ala Biladi, give me peace on them", and concluded with the song "Ayam".
Warda was one of the legendary singers in the Arab world, since her childhood, listening to the most famous singers such as Umm Kulthum and Mohamed Abdel Wahab, until their songs became the first that she ventured to sing with a childish voice but with a feeling of sophistication, and she was visited in France by the princes and presidents to listen to her sweet singing.
Poverty is not a defect, but it must be avoided
"Poverty is not a defect, but it is better to try to get out of it," this is what the artist Warda said about the poverty in which she lived with her family in one of the television interviews.
Warda was born in Lebanon and shortly after that her family moved to France, and there she found herself living in a garage with her parents and five brothers, and they lived in this place for a long time until they got out of poverty after 5 years thanks to her father’s struggle and her mother’s support for him, where her father became the owner of a luxury restaurant and casino. In Paris, tourists come to him from all over the world, and the Arab world in particular, and in this restaurant and on its stage, Warda sang her first songs, and she learned the Arabic language at the hands of his Arab customers, and he wrote Rubaiyat al-Khayyam and Arabic newspapers.
An art journey that began with escaping a death sentence
As a teenager, Warda would sing patriotic songs such as "Ya Habibi, Ya Mujahid", "My Country, My Country" and others;
In support of her father's homeland, Algeria, when the Algerian war broke out in 1958, and because of this position, she was sentenced to death in France, and she and her family were forced to flee to Lebanon.
There, she continued to sing in public with the support of her mother's family and began releasing pro-revolution songs, including "Djamila Bouhired" and "I am from Algeria, I am an Arab".
My beloved homeland.. the largest homeland
And her career began to flourish and drew the attention of all Arab artists, and she embarked on her second journey in the art world after she traveled to Egypt at the invitation of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, to join the operetta "The Greater Homeland", an anthem of the Arab world composed by Ahmed Shafiq Kamel and composed by Muhammad. AbdulWahab.
The operetta was sung during the national celebrations held at the Khedive Opera House.
Warda sang a paragraph dedicated to Algeria's struggle for independence, and many famous singers at the time, such as Najat al-Saghira, Sabah, Shadia, Abdel Halim Hafez and Mohamed Qandil, participated in the anthem. From here, Warda's artistic success story began among the most famous Arab artists.
Among the most famous rumors that spread about her, was her relationship with Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, Minister of War in the early 1960s. After a meeting between her with a number of senior officials in the state, a rumor spread about the relationship between the Field Marshal and the young Algerian singer, and then a decision was issued to deport her outside the country. And prevented her from entering Egypt, and Warda did not return until the early seventies, during the rule of the late President Mohamed Anwar Sadat.
Warda denied these accusations, and claimed that another artist was the cause of the spread of rumors around her, and stated in a previous television interview that this talk hurt her and hurt her family a lot.
During the period of separation from Egypt, Warda married the Algerian fighter Jamal Kasiri and retired from art for a long time for the sake of her husband and gave birth to Riad and Daoud from him, but she could not withstand far from art and returned after the second president of independent Algeria, Houari Boumediene, asked her to sing on Algeria's tenth independence day. There, she met the musician "Baligh Hamdi", who persuaded her to return to Egypt, and because of that, she separated from her husband.
"What did the years do for us? They separated us? No.. did they change us? No.. nor did we feel nostalgia." Love in Warda's life had many adventures, and she maintained her love for Baligh Hamdi even after their separation.
After her return to Egypt, she married Warda Baligh Hamdi in 1972, and this period is the most prosperous in the life of the artist Warda and in which she presented her most successful works, but because happiness does not last despite their strong love, she separated from the artist Baligh Hamdi in 1979, and after her separation from him She collaborated with many composers, including Mohamed Abdel Wahhab, Sayed Makkawi, Mohamed El Mogy and others.
The "Princess of Arab Tarab" died after a sudden cardiac arrest in Cairo at the age of 73 after a long war with heart and liver diseases, and President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ordered her body to be buried in Algeria.
During her busy artistic career, she presented more than 300 songs and sold more than 100 million albums in the Arab world and abroad, and collaborated with top musicians, and among her most famous songs are "Stay Here", "My Times are Sweet", "In a Day and a Night", and "" Game of Days.” She also presented TV series such as “Awraq Al-Ward” and “It’s Time.” She participated in 6 films, the first of which was “Almaz and Abdo Al-Hamouli,” and the last of which was “Why Ya Donia” in 1994.