Shusha - I Have Come To Ravish My Betrothed (1971)

Shusha - "Love Songs & Mystic Chants" {Iran} [1971] (trad. folk

I Have Come To Ravish My Betrothed


"Most people remember Shusha reaching international fame in 1977. She was another Iranian female artist besides Pari Samar who had gained the respect of critics and fans alike. This is quality Folk Music from a respected artist who sadly is no longer with us. Enchanting flute and Zarb accompaniment.

From Wiki.....

Shusha (Shamsi) Guppy née Shamsi Assar (December 24, 1935, Tehran, Iran — March 21, 2008, London, United Kingdom), was a writer, editor and - under the name of "Shusha" - a singer of Persian and Western folk-songs. She had lived in London since the mid 1960s.


Her father, Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammad-Kazem Assar was a distinguished Shia theologian and Professor of Philosophy at University of Tehran. She was sent to Paris when she was only seventeen to study Oriental languages and philosophy. She also trained as an opera singer. In Paris she encountered artists, writers and poets such as Louis Aragon, Jose Bergamin, Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. She was encouraged by Jacques Prévert to record albums of Persian folk songs, and subsequently chansons and old French songs.

After marrying the writer and explorer Nicholas Guppy in 1961 (they had two sons, Darius Guppy and Constantine Guppy, and were divorced in 1976) she moved to London, where she became as fluent in English as she already was in Persian and French. She wrote articles for major publications in both Britain and America. She also began singing professionally.

Her first British release, in 1971, was an album of traditional Persian music, previously released in France. By now, influenced by the Folk Revival, she was writing and singing some of her own songs, as well as covering the works of many contemporary singer/song-writers. She gave successful concerts in Britain, America and continental Europe, and appeared on television and radio programmes.She gave concerts in Holland and Belgium in 1975 with Lori Lieberman and Dimitri van Tooren.

Discography
All are vinyl LPs except where noted. The years given are for the first British release.

Persian Love Songs and Mystic Chants (1971)
Songs of Long-time Lovers (1972)
Shusha (1974)
This is the Day (1974)
Before the Deluge (1975)
From East to West (1978)
Here I Love You (1980)
Lovely in the Dances: Songs of Sydney Carter (1981)
Durable Fire (1983)
Shusha / This is the Day (2001 - reissue on CD)

The writer and editor
Her first book, The Blindfold Horse: Memoirs of a Persian Childhood. was published in 1988. It was highly praised, winning the Yorkshire Post Prize, a prize from the Royal Society of Literature, the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize and the Grand Prix Littéraire de Elle. She describes how Persia was before the excesses of the last Shah led to his overthrow, with an Islamic way of life without dogmatism or fanaticism.