Sabah “the forever young artist”

Sabah, a name that needs no introduction in the world!
Isn’t about time that Lebanon honours Sabah for her long life career in showbiz?
The 89-year-old Lebanese singer has been in the entertainment business for as long as we can remember.
And if she’s well-known for one thing, it’s her multiple marriages, but this doesn’t overshadow the true achievements that made her a household name: Those include 50 albums, 98 movies and 20 stage plays.
Sabah was also the first Arabic singer to perform at Olympia in Paris, Carnegie Hall in New York, and Piccadilly Theatre in London and Sydney Opera House in Sydney.
“Lebanon honours Sabah” was presented by Lebanese journalist Rima Njaim and has featured a number of Arab personalities who have been a part of Sabah’s life and success on MTV.
After Warda’s sad passing in May, fans of traditional Arabic music were left counting the few precious giants that remain from the era where Arabic music flourished—around the middle of the previous century. Fortunately, on the Lebanese front, Fairouz after the sad passing away of Wadih Al-Safi in 2011, Majida El-Roumi; Melhem Barakat are still performing, and so is another icon whose songs are experiencing a revival: the legendary Sabah.
Aside from excelling as a singer, Sabah was not afraid to leverage her looks and sex appeal on stage and on the big screen, and that came through in her songs. She frequently had plastic surgery, and her trademark was her long, thick hair, dyed blond in the vein of Marilyn Monroe. Sabah was the embodiment of a dallou’ah, Lebanese slang for a flirtatious, coquettish, and endearing young woman.
It is rare for songs from the mid-twentieth century to cross over to the contemporary Arabic pop music scene, but Sabah’s songs did. Despite the diversity of her composers, her songs share a groovy, light-hearted, and accessible quality.  Sabah’s songs are easy to learn and sing along to because she preferred a simple repetitive structure and lyrics made of everyday words, mostly in colloquial Arabic.
Yes Sabah, Lebanon has lifted everyone’s spirit and revived our hopes by finally honouring one of his icons!