“Dawn of Armenian Pop Music”: A Primary Source

Vahe H. Apelian

My introduction of the book I translated with the help of my cousin Jack Chelebian M.D.

 

It was in 2011, having resigned my work, I moved to LA to attend to my mother who could no longer attend to her chores but refused to leave her house. Whenever I visited Los Angeles I also visited the famed Abril bookstore. Soon after settling in my mother’s condominium I visited the landmark bookstore. While browsing for a few books in Western Armenian, Arno, the owner of the bookstore presented me Boghos Shamelikian’s book. It was titled “Memories and Bygone Days – Heshadagner Yev Antsats Orer” - «Յիշատակներ եւ Անցած Օրեր».

I had not heard of the book before, even though this was its second edition. The cover of the book attracted me. It depicted many of the popular Armenian singers I knew of growing up in Lebanon. I purchased a copy and read its 220 pages literary in one breath.

Boghos Shahmelilian’s narration was also no less a primary source of information of that period that changed the popular Armenian music and ushered it away from its Ottoman influences. Boghos Shahmelikian was a musician and had collaborated with many of the singers and played in many of the bands, especially in the famed Five Fingers band. In fact, his knowledgeable narration of the era depicted the Diaspora Armenian popular music spring.

It is fair, I thought, that the book is available in English as well. I contacted him and invited him to discuss the matter. He happened to live in the same city my mother also lived in the city of Reseda in Los Angeles.  The moment I welcomed him he looked at me and said that he was sure that we had met before. It turned out that in fact, we had. Both of us are contemporaries and had done our mandatory military training in Lebanon at the same time and had a picture in the same group of the rest of the Armenian students who also did their three weeks long training that summer. Looking back, it does not surprise me that he remembered me. He had a phenomenal memory as attested by the Index of his book I prepared after I translated it to English. The index is 5 pages long, comprising of two columns on each page. Each column lists some 40 names of musicians and musical bands he had made reference to from memory in his book. 

I offered Boghos to translate his book primarily for the benefit of the children and grandchildren of these musicians in particular and for the English speaking upcoming younger generations. Unlike their fathers, they are mostly born and raised on the western shores and hence have not had the opportunity to learn reading and writing in Armenian. He agreed to my offer letting me know that it will be my responsibility to have the book published.  Upon translation, I dedicated the book with the following notation: “This translation is dedicated to the children and grandchildren of the men and women who dared to push the boundaries of the Diaspora Armenian popular music.”

The English translation presented a unique challenge because the intended readers could not relate to the places and events described in the book. Hence I expanded the scope of the book by footnoting the events and the places. The other challenge was Boghos’s insistence that the pictures be harmonized with their description on the page.

Fortunately, my cousin, Jack Chelebian M.D. extended his assistance to me by editing the book. He painstakingly compared my translation to the original text sentence by sentence. It was Jack who proposed that we change the title of the book and call it “The Dawn of Armenian Pop Music”. Boghos agreed to the change of the title. By then I had published my three volumes sequel titled “The Way We Were-The Way We Are” through the Armenian Cultural endeavor, Hrach Kalsahakian from the United Arab Emirates has pioneered as a self-publishing venture making the publication of a book much affordable and freeing the author of amassing copies for distribution. Having collaborated with him before, Hrach made the publication of the book monetarily feasible for me enabling me to also gift Boghos fifty copies of the book for his gifting to friends and institutions. As to the pictures in the book, it was Boghos who undertook the challenge of harmonizing the pictorial presentation with the text with the help of his close friend Vahig Vartabedian. The book was published in 2018 and is available for purchase on Amazon.com.  

On August 7, 2019, Vahig Vartabedian, broke the news of his bosom friend Boghos Shahmelilian'd unexpected death.

 I am sure Boghos would have been pleased to know that his book is rightfully being used as the primary source about the Armenian Diaspora pop music. It is indeed the only book about the subject. Regretfully. When these young men and women embarked into this new venture of playing Armenian music and singing accompanied with contemporary popular musical instruments such as guitar, drums, keyboard, and the Armenian mindset was not keen to appreciate the contribution they were bringing to the Diaspora pop music. Consequently, the Armenian press ignored the emerging phenomenon depriving the future historians from valuable primary source of information. Boghos Shahmelikian’s book fills that void to great extent. It would take decades for the rightly deserved acknowledgment to come about when Catholicos Aram I bestowed upon Adiss Harmandian, Levon Katerjian and Harout Pamboukjian the order of Saint Mesrob Mashots in belated acknowledgment of their immense contribution to the Diaspora Armenian pop culture. "