The 3rd candle goes off

During the 1963 Spring season, I went camping with some friends and relatives. Our spring camps were much simpler then and matched those beautiful old times. Spring-camping was not so popular then and we did not have the luxury that prevailed in the subsequent decades. At night, we sang chorally and one of us was a good Oud player. We used to accompany him by playing our drums and singing songs of that era. There was another camp housing with a group of youth a few hundred meters away from ours. We became friends with them and visited each other at some nights.

One night, friends from the other camp came over but this time they brought along a guest for the first time. He was a very calm good-natured young man. Once the fun started, that young man sang with the most charming voice. We later knew that he was a student in the music section of the teachers’ institute that had been established less than two years earlier. A few years later, that young man became a very well-known singer and one of Kuwait’s prime ones in the 1960’s; it was Hussein Jassim who passed away a few days ago.

Later on, being a radio announcer myself and he being a star in singing, we met so often even around the radio building corridors. I knew for sure how highly-mannered and friendly to everyone he was. Fame and stardom never changed him. He remained so modest and good-natured. As far as I recall, all the songs he sang were successful hits and publically accepted. His songs remained memorable in people’s minds for over fifty years ever since he started with the ‘Ya Elah Al-Koun’, ‘Ah Ya Ghali Ya Abol Moga’, Towni Araftek Zain’ and ‘Ya Sham’at Al-Jellas’; that Sham’a (candle) that got blown out with demise of the composer, Marzouq Al-Marzouq, then, for the second time with the demise of the lyrics writer, Jassim Shehab and now, the third candle gets blown out by the sad demise of Hussein Jassim, May Almighty have mercy on his soul.