[lady.d]

The Rahbany Brothers

Assi’s police work was in Antelias, where he was the sole policeman. The mayor of Antelias, then, was Wadii’ Alshemali, a violin player and art lover. This encouraged Assi to leave his formal job unattended in order to pursue his true calling, stage and music. He would always return at the end of the month, though, to collect his salary.

Mansour’s work as a policeman was at the general security division in Beirut. Like Assi, he would run away from his duties to attend or join other artistic activities. Being policemen, they were forbidden from taking part in any artistic activity. This, however, never could stop them from pursuing their interest.

After the Second World War, Assi and Mansour decided to give up their amateur status and turn professional. The radio was about the only way to get started in the professional field. They were introduced to the proper personae at the radio by Elia Abu Alrous and were asked to submit to a test before deciding on their fate at the radio. They presented some of their own work which was not very well received by the testing committee with the exception of Mishel Khayyat.

As Mansour puts it: “We brought in a different poetic way of thinking and a different kind of music… We changed everything…. Why? I don’t truly know. We were influenced by Abd Elwahab… We were influenced by Sayyed Dawreesh… We were influenced by many other artists, but when we wrote, we wrote with our own private language. In my opinion, an artist should say something new, otherwise, he’d better keep his quiet”.