Abadi Al Johar: Five Decades Along the Road of Saudi Music
Categoria: Musica
For Billboard Arabia’s September cover, Abadi Al Johar reflects on his journey at the heart of Saudi music.
Por Billboard | 01/10/2026
As the final days of summer 2026 gave way to fall in Jeddah, the city seemed ready to tell its own story. Streets and public squares were awash in green for Saudi National Day, an occasion that led us to seek out an artist who did more than witness a golden age of Saudi music. He helped shape it, then continued alongside it into the present day, both a witness to its transformations and an active part of them. That journey brought us to the majlis (guest room) of Dr. Abadi Al Johar, where he welcomed the Billboard Arabia team ahead of his September cover interview. But before he could begin telling his story, the room had already started telling it for him. The space felt like a window onto successive eras — a time capsule transporting visitors back to scenes now accessible only through photographs, memories and music. On one wall hangs a photograph of Abadi alongside the late Talal Maddah and Mohammed Abdu. Elsewhere, a plaque commemorates his participation in a festival held in Egypt decades ago. In another corner is a portrait drawn by a fan in the 1960s — simple in execution, yet filled with the kind of pure affection and enthusiasm that existed before distance and barriers came to separate artists from their audiences. In the hallway, more than 40 oud instruments stand together, each carrying a story of its own, silent witnesses to the more than five decades their owner has spent as an ambassador for a distinctly Saudi musical tradition. Something remarkable tends to happen in many of our conversations with musicians, almost without planning. We rarely begin with childhood, nor do we trace a career in strict chronological order. Yet somehow, we often find ourselves returning to a distant scene that changed everything. Perhaps decades of experience compel great artists to revisit the years before fame, rearranging those early images in their minds before calmly recounting the moment that set their lives on an entirely different course. For Abadi, that moment takes us back to Jeddah in the 1960s. An orphaned child, he would spend long hours alone in his room practicing the oud, determined to surpass his older brother, who had taken up the instrument before him. Then chance and fate converged in the same neighborhood. Living nearby was Lutfi Zaini, the poet and media figure who played an important role in enriching Saudi Arabia’s artistic scene. He heard the young boy play and recognized that beneath his determination was a talent worth seeing. So he took him to the greatest artist he knew. Barely 14, Abadi entered Talal Maddah’s home and sat down to play for an artist who was then at the forefront of Saudi music as a singer, composer and performer. Talal listened and recognized the potential behind the teenager’s playing. That encounter opened a door through which Abadi would enter a world where he would eventually become a musician, composer, singer and ambassador for Saudi music. “From that very first meeting, something happened — I don’t kn