Universal play

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She was born near Paris
in Puteaux in July 1940. The youngest of five children. Her father, Mohammed
Ftouki was one of the first Algerian immigrants to France,
ran a hostel for migrant workers at Boulogne-Billancourt
then became the owner of an Arabic music cabaret in the Quartier Latin called
the Tam-Tam (named after the three initials of the three Maghreb countries, Tunisia, Algeria,
and Morocco).
She used to sneak out of her room every night and hide in one of the corners
for two or three hours to listen to the band while they were playing or
rehearsing in her father's night club below and then she would sing for her
self the next morning.

In those
days Warda was unable to write any Arabic, she always had to ask her older
brother to write out all her Arabic songs in the Latin alphabet. From time to
time Warda's father was tolerant enough to allow his daughter's brief
appearance on a stage of his club at the request of a friend.

Warda's
mother was a Lebanese born in Beirut
in a Moslem family of good social position. She had taught Warda every Lebanese
song of some importance. Thus the girl's liking for the Middle Eastern song had
developed.

She was
only a little girl when she would sing songs by Abdelwahab or Farid Elatrash.
Ahmad Tejani, a friend of Warda's father, was working for a famous record
company, Pathè Marconi-EMI (now EMI France), which used to produce children's
programs for North African Arabs in France on the Paris radio station. During
one of his visits to the TAM TAM club he heard her singing and liked her voice
so much that, shortly after, he presented her to the radio and she participated
in the show with a song called "Song for the Mother".

In 1958,
as Paris was more and more concerned by the
development of the Algerian War of Independence, the whole family had to seek
refuge in Beirut
where she went on singing militant songs. The whole family lived in a small
apartment in Al Hamra Street
in Beirut. When
Warda started singing in Tanyos, a famous night club in Aley, she was only 17
and her national songs were hardly the style for night clubs.

On one of
the nights when she was performing Mohamed Abdul Wahab was among the audience.
At the end of her performance he approached her and proposed that he compose for
her, such a proposal she could not refuse. He was to become, throughout her
career, her "godfather".

His
extremely demanding, almost tyrannical, working methods would change her
forever. For the "Oustaz" (The Master) the only price of glory was
hard work and dedication, and this was a challenge for Warda for she had to
learn how to write Arabic and to erase her Algerian accent.

In 1959, in Syria, the
great composer, Riad al Soumbati heard her performing a nationalistic song
called "Koulouna Jamila" during Damascus Festival and was seduced by
her voice. He decided to invite her to Cairo
where he was to compose many songs for her among them "Loubat el
Ayyam" and "Nida el Dhamir".

When she
arrived in Cairo in 1960, Riad Sombati was
willing to help her: he set two music poems by an Egyptian poet: "Ya huria
ana bendahlek" (I am calling you, O Liberty), "Dalia Djamila",
in honor of Palestine,
and he also composed the musical part of a play "Alikhwa thalata Deir
Yassine" (The three brothers from Deir Yassin).

In
1961/1962 the Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser asked that she
participate, as the representative of Algeria, in a song for the Arab
world called "Al Watan Al Akbar". This song was composed by Mohamed
Abdel Wahab and Warda had the chance to appear alongside other famous singers
such as Abdel Halim Hafez, Sabah, Fayza Ahmed,
Najat al Sagheera and Shadya.

The film
director Helmy Rafla heard Warda and put her forward for a major role in his
film "Almaz Wa Abdu Al Hamoly". For this film both Mohamed Abdel
Wahab and Farid el Atrache were to compose her songs.

In 1962, Algeria became
independent. In 1963, she flew there for the first time to marry a former high
ranking officer in the National Liberation Army (ALN) she had met during her
stay in Lebanon.
Her husband asked her to give up singing to look after her family - which she
did for ten years but was very, her career seemed to be definitively over.

But in
1972, Houari Boumedienne, the President of Algeria, asked her to participate in
the celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the Independence. She agreed, with the result
that her marriage broke down.

ElMassia
Egyptian orchestra was sent to accompany her singing her comeback song:
"Ad'uka ya amali", a poem by the Algerian poet Salah Kharfi, music by
Baligh Hamdi.

In
December of the same year she left for Cairo
where she became very rapidly one of the most famous Arab singers with
"Elûyûn essûd", "Khallik Nena" and other songs in the same
vein composed by Baligh Hamdi, whom she had just married.

She began
working with the most famous composers of the time, Riad al Soumbati, Baligh
Hamdi (whom she was later to marry and who was to compose so many of her
successful songs during ten years), Kamal al Tawel, Said Mekkawi and of course,
the "Oustaz" Mohamed Abdel Wahab.

She played
a part in two films: "Sût elhob" (The voice of love) and
"Hikaiti maa ezzaman" (My fate and me), in which she sang works by M.
Abdelwahab, Kamal El Tawil, Mohammed Elmûgui and by her husband Baligh Hamdi.

In recent
years she has worked particularly closely with the composer Salah el Sharnoubi,
the lyricist Omar Batiesha, the musician Tarek Akef and producer Mohsen Gaber
(Alam El Fan), an association which led to three of her albums receiving the
award of "Best Album of the Year" in 1991, 1992 and 1994.

Warda al
Jazairia - The Rose of Algeria - has always brought joy and pleasure, through
her art, talent and magical voice, to her many fans and admirers across the
Arab world and globally through more than 300 carefully chosen songs and with
concerts booked all over the world.