Halim El-Dabh: The Father of Electronic Music - Podcast Episode 4 Out Now!

I can answer a lot of your questions about Halim. You mentioned his birthday. Halim used to shout out things like “I am Ra!” (referring to the Egyptian god of the sun) after a performance or recording session that went especially well. He used to claim to be thousands of years old so his birthday is still celebrated in the Kent, OH creative culture. Those celebrations include an acknowledgement to the mythical version of Halim’s age. I assume the number is supposed to refer to the age of the sun, as it is told in the myth of Ra. When Halim was 80 there was a year of concerts to celebrate. I performed with Halim and David Badagnani in many of those concerts. We had developed an arrangement of one of the pieces from “Crossing into the Electric Magnetic”. There were also a lot of other wonderful musicians involved in those concerts. About his electronic work: I restored Halims electronic music in the ‘90s. I originally released it on my cassette label (Pointless Music). Then, I re-released it on CD on Without Fear Recordings. It was later re-released on some other label but I wasn’t involved with that. So I am the “they” you are referring to when you talk about the electronic recordings being restored and released. I can also tell you all about Halim’s “Opera Flies”. It was an opera specifically about the May 4th shootings at Kent State University in 1970. I co-produced a few versions of it for him in 1995. It is kind of a wild story, but maybe beyond the scope of your podcast. There are so many stories!

Hi Cosmic Captains 🚀 just caught up with Jacqueline’s interesting Podcast ep 4 🛰️👍