Desert Wind

The voice of Ofra Haza is just amazing. Found her work by chance on youtube and it went from there - Highly Recommend to anyone into World Music with a late 80's twist! A Must!

My favourite Israeli Yemini singer. R.I.P. Ofra Haza

I'm a German engineer and manager who has the luck to live in one of the most unseen and most beautiful deserts of the Arabian Gulf Region. (Take a look into the photographer's book of George Steinmetz: Rub Al Khali desert). I live at the endless ocean of sand dunes between the Arabian Emirate Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia.I enjoy to listen to OFRA HAZA on my long drives through the deserts of the Arabian Gulf Region (Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, etc.)I discovered the singer OFRA HAZA on some visits to ISRAEL in the 1990ies. She has been one of the most famous singers there. She has been very famous in North America, and in Europe, too..... A portrait of Ofra Haza:...."Even after she left Israel to achieve fame and fortune in Europe and the US, Ofra Haza was still 'our girl'. Her accomplishments boosted the country, as we saw her reach a level of international success that no other Israeli pop singer had achieved.This success became apparent after the news that she had been hospitalized in serious condition was made public earlier this month. Fans conducted vigils at the hospital and the Hebrew tabloids ran wild with the story, dropping innuendo and spreading rumors about her condition and its causes.But the overkill may have been a necessary outlet for the pain the nation felt. For Haza was a true rags-to-riches immigrant success story.Rising from the working class Hatikva quarter in Tel Aviv, one of nine children born to traditional Yemenite immigrants, Haza became one of the country's most loved singers.Whether appearing at the Eurovision Contest singing "Chai" in 1983 or topping the European club charts with "Im Nin Alu," she projected an image of confidence and joy, one that reflected back on her fans.When she left to break out of the small Israeli confines in the mid-1980s, some criticized the move as unpatriotic and selfish. But in becoming a goodwill ambassador for Israel through her high profile, she performed immeasurable good for the country.The fans who stood vigil, agonized over the newspapers every day, and last night bade farewell, weren't saying goodbye to the elegant, worldwide star. They were mourning their girl from Tel Aviv.Ofra Haza was an artist whose roots were the core of her music and her world-wide success -Raised as the youngest of nine children to a traditional Yemenite family in the Hatikva neighborhood of Tel Aviv, Haza's fairy-tale climb to fame and fortune has become the stuff of local legend.At age of 12, she joined the Hatikva Theater group. With the encouragement of the group's founder Bezalel Aloni, who later became her manager, Haza took on stronger and more demanding leading roles within the Hatikva group, and by the time she was 19, her solo career was launched.After serving two years in the IDF she recorded her first solo album and quickly rose to become one of the country's top singers. She was voted second in the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest with "Chai" and released 16 gold and platinum albums.Then, the unlikely idea of matching traditional Yemenite songs with a throbbing dance beat unexpectedly launched an international career.In 1985, Haza, released her first international album, Yemenite Songs, a collection of interpretations of devotional poetry written by 17th-century rabbi, Shalom Shabazi. Then in 1988, Ofra appeared in the remix of "Paid in Full" in the Colors movie soundtrack.Not long after, Ofra's song "Im Nin Alu" reached No. 1 in the German charts for nine straight weeks and No. 1 in the Euro charts for two weeks, making her an international name.Haza focused on the international arena, relocating to Los Angeles, but she returned home a number of times each year for performances and visits. On February 3, 1987, Haza survived an airplane crash in a Cessna aircraft on the Israeli/Jordanian border.Her next album, Shaday, continued her international success, selling over one million copies worldwide and receiving The New Music Award for the International Album of the Year in New York City in 1989.The success of Shaday broke into the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets as her tour continuously sold out and her single, "Im Nin Alu," won first place at the Tokyo music festival.Her visual image, with her colorful national dress and the exotic mixture of Middle Eastern ballads and rhythms blended with western styles, helped to make her Israel's best-known female solo singer in the US and Europe.In 1992, Ofra's album Kirya was nominated for the Grammy Awards for the best album in the World Beat category.At the request of the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Haza performed at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo in December 1994."I'm happy with what I have. I thank God. I am the first Israeli to have this kind of success, so why should I complain about anything?" she told The Jerusalem Post in 1994.Haza continued to appear in many projects in recent years, including the DreamWorks Prince of Egypt soundtrack and The Governess soundtrack, both in 1998.Haza married businessman Doron Ashkenazi in 1997. The couple had no children. ..."

Ofra Haza manages to capture the true spirit of the Arab-Israeli divide in this album. It is an album which reflects the feelings of both sides fairly and accurately. She manages to blend both Jewish and Arabic Music in a way that is appealing also to both the East and the West alike.

The record itself works fine, however the packaging had a distinctive hole as if something poked through it on the upper right corner. That is very dissapointing as it ruins the look of the cover also the lyrics sheet inside is damaged to the point where some of the words are no longer comprehendible which is also very upsetting. I paid for a "new" record and it sure seems like someone had misused it. Particularly frustrating for someone who is trying to build a strong presentable collection of timeless records! (Edited: I did get a refund but sadly there was no substitute record in stock!)

Fast and not expensive , but maybe it looks so second hand

Whilst I do like Ofra's voice, and much of Shaday (previous album), the clonky US production is very much to the fore on may tracks here. Combined with some slightly iffy English lyrics I found this a very disappointing CD. Her final CD proper, Ofra Haza (Show Me) is for me easily her best, so it's not the artist, just some of the production here. I was intrigued to hear how Thomas Dolby produced a couple of the tracks but they also sounded far more dated than his own material around that time. Ofra's was still a great talent though!

Hallo 80er Jahre. Hallo Ethnopop. Man sieht beim hören förmlich die Schulterpolster wieder . Die Pasteltöne. Und auch fremde Länder. Zum dahin Schmelzen

I'll never forget the day I first heard this on cassette. My wife came home from shopping and put it on. I said "WOW, who is this??" And she said "I don't know who she is, they were playing her at the music store and I asked who it was and bought it. I think she's Arab." Then I saw Ofra Haza's picture on the cover and had to say "WOW" again. As we soon learned, she was a Yemenite Israeli, already world-famous (except in America) back then in 1990. We saw her in concert later that year and of course learned much more about her and her earlier music, particularly her groundbreaking "Fifty Gates of Wisdom (Yemenite Songs)".Following "Fifty Gates" in 1987, Ofra Haza turned to a dance beat in "Shadday" (1988), an album, in my opinion, of derivative western dance-track sounds and only two stand-out songs. Then, a year later, she turns out "Desert Wind", this stunning, hook-laden, beat-driven, authentically Middle-Eastern album of passionate, meaningful songs, juxtaposing Hebrew and English verses, almost all written or co-written by her. Best are the danceable "Ya Ba Ye", "Middle East", "I Want to Fly" and "Taw Shi", and the gorgeous "Fatamorgana", "Da'asa" and "Kaddish". That's a lot of favorites for one album, but that's the kind of album this is. "Slave Dream" and "In Ta" take some getting used to, but even they turn into winners once you've managed to absorb them. "Kaddish" left hardly a dry eye in the house when she performed this in concert. "Middle East" has ironically the least middle-eastern melody of the dance tunes (i.e. it's in a major key), and it is a rousing song of hope for peace - even a love offering to the Palestinians. Ofra seems to put one such song on every album. Tragically, Ofra is gone, and we're all still waiting to hear popular songs of peace from the Palestinian side. Ofra would probably say keep hoping.

お安く買えてお買い得でした。一種独特の雰囲気があります。他のものもと一緒に何枚か購入しました。

Many years ago, I found a tape in the discount bin by the artist Ofra Haza. It was Desert Wind. I had never heard of her but I was intrigued by the cover and frankly, the price. I bought it hoping that it would atleast be interesting and new. I was not disappointed. Ofra's voice blew me away. I had never heard anything like it before and have not since. Desert Wind is still, for me, her best album. Her voice soars in I Want To Fly and is haunting in Kaddish. She was really my first encounter with Middle Eastern music and I have never forgotten how utterly moved I was by her beautiful voice.

For a woman who was killed mysteriously by the illuminati, you can't get much better then this! Life changing energy! This woman will heal your soul! That's probably one of the reasons she was infected with AIDS, along with her outspoken politics, trying to save the victimized Yemenite children. Down with the sex trade!