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Revision as of 10:41, 27 January 2006
Mohamed Hamri (1933-2000) was a Moroccan painter and one of the few Moroccans to participate in the Tangier Beat generation scene as an equal. He was born in 1932 in the Northern Moroccan town of Ksar El Kebir, the nearest town to Joujouka, at the southern end of the Rif Mountains. His father was a ceramics artist who painted his pieces following an ancient tradition. Hamri's mother was born into a family of Joujouka musicians. Hamri attended school for a short time but disliked it. Whenever Hamri ran away from school he went to his uncle's house in Joujouka. His uncle was the leader of the musicians there and the music of Joujouka had a strong effect on Hamri. As a boy he often danced as Bou Jeloud in a costume sewn from goatskins.
After World War II, life in Joujouka was very difficult as there was very little food available. Hamri helped the musicians avoid this famine by bringing them to Tangier to play. One day, when Hamri was fifteen years old, he was killing time outside the train station in Tangier by drawing in the dust on the ground. He was approached by the American writer Paul Bowles who admired his drawing. This fateful meeting was Hamri's introduction to the sophisticated set of Westerners that was attracted to Tangier. Bowles soon employed him as a cook. Paul and his wife Jane encouraged Hamri to paint and bought him his first set of watercolours.
The following year he befriended the Canadian painter Brion Gysin, who became his mentor. They had a joint exhibition in 1952 where Hamri sold all his works and Gysin sold none. Gysin was introduced to the music of Hamri's mother's village Joujouka and became a life-long promoter of the Sufi trance master musicians who lived there. Together with Gysin he set up the 1001 Nights Restaurant in Tangiers and employed the Master Musicians of Joujouka to play there.
In 1968 he brought The Rolling Stones' Brian Jones to Joujouka to record. The resulting LP, Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, was released on Rolling Stones Records in 1971. In 1972 he arranged Ornette Coleman's visit to Joujouka, and the collaboration between Coleman, local musicians, and journalist/musician Robert Palmer was recorded for Coleman's Dancing in Your Head LP, on which it appears as the track "Midnight Sunrise." From 1974-79 Hamrilived and paint ed in Los Angeles. In 1975 his book Tales of Joujouka was published by Capra Press in Santa Barbara. From 1980 onwards, he divided his time between Tangier and Joujouka.
In 1992 he participated in The Here to Go Show in Dublin, Ireland. This show was documented in the documentary Destroy all Rational Thought and was a celebration of Willaim Burroughs, Brion Gysin and the Tangier Beat Scene. In 1994 he supervised Frank Rynne's recording of the CD Joujouka Black Eyes by the Master Musicians of Joujouka.
He had over fifty exhibitions of his paintings in Morocco, Spain, Germany, the United States, and Ireland. Hamri continued to promote the music of Joujouka until his death in August 2000. He is buried in the centre of the village, close to the tomb of Sidi Achmed Sheich.
His posthumous reputation as a painter is growing, and a recent retrospective was held at the the Laurence-Arnott Gallery in Tangier. Daughter Sanaa Hamri is a movie director.