It was the summer of 1991, I was only 10 and I found my way to play the accordion in the music band in school. I was just enjoying myself, too young to develop my own taste in music, my ears have never listened to nothing but Andulhaleem Hafedh and Fairuz until that point of time. But looking back at those days, there was only one shared musical interest among all my friends in school that couldn’t be ignored-Ali Bahar & Alekhwa band.

I remember I managed to get hold of one single mix cassette for a while that contained few songs of the band but doesn’t include the one song the whole country was talking about in the summer of 1991-”Elbareha”. I had to beg my dad to take me to the music store to buy my own original cassette album for this song. And there it was, the first music album I have ever owned, a classic 1991′s production: “Elbareha” by Alekhwa.

Then a year later, my parents got me my first electric piano and the first song I have ever taught myself to play was also “Elbareha”, and that allowed this tune to be scared on my heart everlastingly.

Nowadays, with the tragedy of Ali’s death fresh in my mind, it’s impossible to listen to “Elbareha” and the other essential cuts of Alekhwa and not get swept up in their transporting purity and recall all ny childhood and teenage memories. Those memories remained because they were burned into my collective consciousness with a soundtrack from the band-as the unprecedented Bahrain outpouring of grief illustrates, there’s not a soul alive from my generation that hasn’t been touched by the voice of Ali Bahar. And it made me realize that we have no musician that speaks to all of us and that we haven’t for sometime now.

At his best and at his worst, with respect, gratitude and love, I owe this to Ali… He’ll always be with me.

Ala Ghawas, July 16, 2011