Over the next few months, we’ll be exploring the musical legacy of Sunset Boulevard. Discover more from 12 Sunsets: Exploring Ed Ruscha’s Archive.
The Fez (detail), 1973, Ed Ruscha. Negative film reel: Western Ave headed east (detail of image 146). Part of the Streets of Los Angeles Archive, The Getty Research Institute. © Ed Ruscha
In 1973, Saadoun Al-Bayati released his first and only album, Songs of Iraq, on his own record label in Costa Mesa, California. It was, quite literally, a solo project. With just his voice and hands, Al-Bayati created an intimate, skilled, and intense tribute to a vast musical history. Trained in classical Islamic and Sufi vocal traditions in his native Baghdad, Al-Bayati, who also learned to play oud and percussion, had spent time in Chicago studying theater before heading to Los Angeles in search of TV and film roles. He landed two, on a 1967 Western for CBS and a 1969 Western for NBC, but it was his music that found him a home in Hollywood, where he became a staple at the Sunset-Boulevard-adjacent supper club The Fez.
The first full-scale Arab nightclub in Los Angeles, The Fez was a two-story movie set of Middle Eastern fantasy. Its downstairs Magic Carpet Room restaurant served Lebanese classics from the family recipes of the club’s owner, Lou Shelby (née Shelaby), while its cavernous upstairs Sinbad Room lounge featured the city’s top belly dancers, oud players, and darbuka drummers.
Shelby opened the club in 1957, just north of Sunset on Vermont, right when American pop culture was in the throes of its latest harem love affair with the exotic, mythic Orient. By then, Egyptian dance and screen icon Samia Gamal had already been dancing at Ciro’s and showing up in Hollywood films like MGM’s The Valley of the Kings, and the Brooklyn-based musician Mohammed El-Bakkar had already played an “Arab rug seller” on Broadway and put a topless belly dancer on the cover of his debut album, Port Said: Music of the Middle East Vol. 1 (subsequent volumes were dedicated to sultans and magic carpets).
In his early Los Angeles Times advertising for The Fez, Shelby promised “Near Eastern food” and “steaks,” but by the ‘60s, he had fully embraced a more typically sensationalist pitch aimed at attracting non-Arab customers. Come for “an exotic setting,” stay for “Turkish and Persian Harem Dancers,” and “You’ll find a world of difference.” The club’s commitment to lavish cultural set design helped make it a Hollywood favorite for the likes of Kim Novak, Marlon Brando, Jayne Mansfield, and Syrian-American actor Danny Thomas (born as Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz).
“The Fez became what it was because, for the most part, it was prior to the demonization of the Arab,” Shelby’s daughter Roxxanne Shelaby told me (her documentary on the club was released in 2015). “It was 1001 Nights, it was exotic and interesting, and mysterious, and that’s not the world we live in anymore. With the Six-Day War and Sirhan Sirhan, all of a sudden, we became the other. My dad even wondered if he should have changed the name of the club and made it ‘Greek’ or ‘Mediterranean.’”
Seventh Veil, 1973, Ed Ruscha. Negative film reel: La Brea headed west (Image 66). Part of the Streets of Los Angeles Archive, The Getty Research Institute. © Ed Ruscha
But the name stayed, and the club remained popular not only with the studio set, but with the local Arab community who had always made up its core audience. They came, in part, because it was an after-hours studio for Arab dance greats like Feiruz Aram, Aisha Ali, and Antoinette Awayshak, and because it was the unofficial diaspora headquarters of the city’s Middle Eastern music scene. You could catch a set from a visiting Lebanese singing star like Toni Hanna, or sit at the feet of more familiar L.A. faces like Al-Bayati, Jordanian-American multi-instrumentalist Hani Naser, and Armenian-American oud stalwart and Kef Time band leader Richard Hagopian (who was also a regular at another Middle East themed Sunset club, Seventh Veil, in the years before it morphed into a favorite Mötley Crüe strip club).
Palestinian singer Maroun Saba was so at home at The Fez that he eventually became part owner after Shelby sold it in 1971. One of Saba’s first moves was to record the album Live from the Fez in Hollywood (the only release from Fez Records), which featured Saba alongside acclaimed Lebanese violinist Aboud Abdel Aal and Syrian Druze singer Fahd Ballan. Side A only had one track: the complete musical score to one of the club’s infamous belly dance stage shows. It was a first in the history of preserving Middle Eastern music in Los Angeles, and a guarantee that long after The Fez was gone, its sounds could still teach people how to move.
Further listening
Live from the Fez: Maroun Saba with Aboud Abdel Aal: Music for Belly Dancers (Complete Routine)
Richard Hagopian and His Orchestra: Shehnaz Longa (An Evening at the Seventh Veil)
Thank you for further documenting our history, pulling together the legacies of Lou Shelby and his family (once they moved to CA from being part of the Middle Eastern music and dance scene of Boston), Antoinette Awayshak, Aisha Ali, Feiruz Aram, Saadoun, and the amazing musicians from so many different countries, and starting a long line of dancers. And thank you too Roxxanne Shelaby for all the work you do.
I am thrilled to learn that “The Fez” nightclub has been recognized by the Getty. I call the Fez my “dance cradle”. I was hired in 1968 and left in 1971 to enroll at Cal State University, Long Beach. I stayed in touch with Lou Shelaby, his daughter, Roxxanne and the dancers and musicians.
I was invited to appear in “The Fez” documentary, produced by Roxxanne Shelby in 2017. And the beat goes on!
Another bit of Celebrity Info:
When I worked/danced at the Fez mid 70s, one of the wonderful & favorite waitresses named Alma married Richard Thomas aka John Boy on the Waltons TV show. Richard was a pretty regular customer when he was courting her.
Loved this! My parents went back in the day…I think a couple of my uncles performed there too.
I’d love to see photos of the interior, but having zero luck searching online. Anyone have any tips?
Thanks!
Do you have any film or stories in your achieves on The Marquis on Sunset Blvd.? This was a hang out for me in the late 50;s. Some of my musician friends played there–basically going from table to table. It would be fun to see pictures and hear some of their names mentioned.
It was such a joy to find this article – thank you for including the Fez in this series! It made such a dramatic and lasting impact on the world of belly dance – in Los Angeles and beyond!
I wish we had known about this club at that time. It is wonderful that the story still lives with your organization.
My husband and I loved the Fez. I was mesmerized by the amazing dance moves of Lourie Rose who inspired me to learn and subsequently also taught me at LACC. I only danced for my hubby.
Really enjoying this series on LA music scene and history.
Thank you Mr. Kun for your excellent work.
Thank you so much for writing about The Fez. The Fez was my first dance job after studying with the amazing Aisha Ali. Aisha and The Fez, changed my life for I went on to marry Andreas Chianis known as America’s greatest Greek clarinetist who played at the Fez on Monday nights when they featured a Greek Night. Our daughter Atlantis also went on to become a most wonderful Belly Dancer and to this day we are co-producers of our 32 year ongoing Belly Dancer of the Universe Competition. The Fez and Aisha Ali, were the greatest catalysts for my continuing my life of Middle Eastern dance and I have shared it as a teacher with many. My deepest thanks also to Roxanne Shelaby for including me in her wonderful Fez documentary.
My deepest thanks. To Roxanne Shelaby for
The Fez and Aisha Ali also changed my life! Fond memories of frequenting and performing at the Fez, and grateful to be included in the memorable Fez Documentary by Roxxanne Shelaby!
Great memories, the Fez was my home for many years, when Lou Shelby hired me I had never danced professionally.
He hired me because I was Syrian and looked the part. I learned everything on the stage. Fred and Lou would say do this and do that and finally came into my own. It was a great experience and launched a great career. . My mother even worked as a cashier. They became my family. I will always be great full for Lou’s friendship. He opened many doors for me, when they needed help somewhere, I was hostess, cocktail waitress and Edna and I even cooked in the kitchen when The chef wasn’t there. My memories will never fade about my time in the Fez.
I posted one,what happened to it. I must look on my site to see if it ended up there
My story was of working there as a waitress in the sinbad room for several months as a waitress, Richard Thomas was there every Saturday night, and actually married another waitress, who use to be a student along with me at Hollywood High! They had triplets that were in MinuteMaid commercials with their dad, the main actor on the popular shoe called The Waltons. I worked full time during the day at ABC-TV, which was at that time on Prospect and Talmadge, not far from the Fez. I left that job after another waitress was injured by someone throwing a mug of beer which grazed her forehead! I ended up working in Long beach at a tiny bar called The Red Mill, where two weeks later I met my husband, a German officer on a merchant ship! We were married for almost forty five years! We would have never met if the Fez did not get too rough for me that night