BY MULUGETA GUDETA
This month alone two singers from two different generations, namely the older and the newer, left this world one after the other. A legendary female vocalist breathed her last, barely two weeks after Dawit Firew, son of the legendary Ethiopian clarinet player Firew Hailu, passed away suddenly while staying in his hotel room in the Italian capital Rome where he travelled for some business probably connected to his work. He was a rising clarinet player who has proved himself worthy as his father’s successor.
Earlier last week, the local music-loving public heard about Hirut Bekele’s death and we were shocked by the succession of the two musicians in life as well as in death. Hirut was the foremost female vocalists of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s who dominated concert stages for more than three decades before she went into voluntary retirement. She passed away of natural causes at the mature age of 81 while under medical treatment at home and abroad according to media reports. Dawit was too young to have his career cut short by death while Hirut lived a long a productive life although she retired relatively earlier than most musicians or artists in Ethiopia.
We have sometimes the impression that artists and musicians in particular are leaving us one after the other as they fall victim to death by accident, due to old age or natural causes. They enjoy publicity while alive as well as when they go to see their Creator. They always live in the hearts and minds of their fans who might follow every step along their journey. The public expects them to come up with new music every year or so. In a way, artists live a double life. Artists live their own lives while, in a strange way, they share the lives of their fans because they live in their memories.
And when death knocks at their doors, their fans are devastated. Their tragedy receives wide coverage that is not often accorded to people from any other occupation. When musicians pass away there are many reasons to stay with us and reminds us they were our friends or neighbours because their works continue to live with us. Hirut Bekele’s artistic life, which started sometime in the 1960s, has roughly gone through three distinct stages. The first consisted of her birth and growth until the time she became a singer in the Police Orchestra where she quickly proved her talent and steady rose to prominence alongside such female stars as Bizunesh Bekele (no relation to Hirtu), who is generally believed to be the all-time most famous and most talented female singer in Ethiopia.
The second phase of Hirut’s relatively long life consisted of the time of her rise to prominence until her decision to retire around 1986 as she switched from secular music to gospel singing as people close to her had reported. Her gospel phase coincided with her decline because she was no more visible on stage, her gospel tunes available to a narrower devoted audience while the press sopped reporting about events in relation to her life afterwards. As it is the case with most artists in this country, only her death reached the press last week while her old fans were not aware that she was even ill and receiving medical treatment.
In a society where death is more revered than life, it may not come as a surprise that Hirtu’s death was an occasion to remember her as a once bright start who shined on the bright sky of Ethiopian music and went out of public view a long time ago and is unknown by most members of the new generation. The last phase of her life was the one she just came to terminate namely her decline not only as an artist but also as a human being whose fading memory is one of a gorgeous woman who used to dance to the tunes of the time, shaking and even shivering and twisting to the tunes of the times as if she was always an ageless young damsel moved by music.
When her decision to retire reached her fans, many of them were shocked with disbelief because she was at the peak of her talent, healthy and promising. Then she descended into obscurity apparently unwilling to give interviews to the media and then into total obscurity. In a relatively short music career, Hirtu Bekele is said to have produced dozens of songs, reaching more than 200 according to some estimates, writing her lyrics and composing he lyrics as some of her fans recently recalled.
She has also more than a dozen albums to her name, recorded with older technology that may be now harder to find and listen to Hirut’s songs that may not be adapted to newer technology that preserve music and other works of arts for eternity. We have often the impression that the older generations of Ethiopian musicians and artists in general have entered the phase of their inevitable disappearance. The media is keen to report the sudden and often tragic disappearance of well-established artists because they are generally considered the spices that make our lives taste better or because they are considered national treasures whose lives are closely connected to that of the country in happy as well as adverse times.
They are celebrated not only because they give us the pleasure of arts bit also they share in the painful moments that are not rare. Artists and more particularly vocalists and lyricists as well as composers are considered national treasures because they make us sing and dance and shout and jump up and down in peace times. They make our lives lighter and more bearable. Without music and musicians, the world could become a place of chaotic cacophony. Music and musicians are in a way the architects of sound who give it shape and meaning to everyday acoustic chaos around us.
Musicians are also with us during times of national difficulties. They comfort, encourage and boost national morale whenever tragedy strikes. They go to war to defend national unity while they inspire many of us to acts of heroism and selflessness. They play patriotic music at war fronts whenever the national integrity and peace of the country is threatened. This is not something unique to Ethiopia but also practiced elsewhere in the world. Musicians often travel to the war fronts to give troops hope of victory in the midst of the sound and fury of wars. Some of the greatest names and legends in Ethiopian music, such as Tilahun Gessesse, Mohamed Ahmed and scores of other less popular artists are known to have fought with their microphones, singing patriotic songs in praise of troops stationed at various war fronts in the past.
Hirut Bekele’s biographical details are too scanty and dispersed here and there that they require a kind of piecing together some of the available elements of her life that need serious considerations. What put Hirut apart from her contemporaries were her ability to find her own voice early in her career and the automatic acceptance and celebrity status she enjoyed during her active period of her career. Hirut had a strong patriotic element to her songs. A good example is the song entitled “Ethiopia” for which the vocalist used her heart and soul to produce and convey the deeply moving melodies that have remained immortal despite the passage of time.
Almost all the major vocalists in Ethiopia have sung about Ethiopia at least once or twice during their careers. Yet, only one song remains stamped in the memories of her fans and prove unforgettable. Hirut’s Ethiopia conveys a feeling of nostalgia, deep love and dedication to the welfare of the country that is often portrayed in the image of a generous mother who has given all she had to her children. The theme has still powerful appeal in recent times as the country emerges from one kind of conflict to the other. The song has also a powerfully unifying rather than polarizing effect on older generations and the younger ones.
Ethiopia! Our country!
You’re a dependable support
To all of us your children! …
Thus goes part of the lyrics in praise of the motherland. It is still appealing and relevant to many difficult challenges the country has witnessed in its long existence. When Hirut sang about Ethiopia, she did not refer to an Ethiopia of this or that period under this or that ruler. In fact, Hirut’s Ethiopia is the pinnacle of reverence, of an Ethiopia that is conceived as timeless in her existence and benevolent in her treatment of all her children, irrespective of whether they asked what their country has done to them or what they have done to their country.
Temperamentally, Hirut lived much of her life as a loner, not seeking the limelight as many artists did. She did her job well and then retired in silence and died without anyone knowing that she was ill. Her retirement might have been the result of her silent meditation. She will also continue to live in the hearts of her fans, family and the public quite silently as it was her habit to deal with life. Who knows, maybe her musical legacy might speak louder now she has started her final journey. The outpouring of grief over the media might also be a sign that she has started her second life, this time in the memory of the public that adored her.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 17 MAY 2023
