He owns a secondhand fridge and television shop in Shahpour, where he was born. There’s a class divide between those who glow with fondness at his name and those who look at you sidelong when you mention it.Īlthough his music is beloved by the traveling man, Javad himself hasn’t moved very far.
His tales of family, folks back home, Mama and the love of the Shia Imams are sung in the same accent as boasts about knife fights in tea houses all over Iran. Even as I describe the scene to him, he’s having trouble visualizing it: a bunch of drunken kids in north Tehran, jumping on expensive sofas to his music. Bought from a street seller, it quickly became our late night party anthem. In one, he swims in and out of focus against images of Belgium, the home of his oldest son, who made the eccentric suggestion that Javad slap himself over shots of a local church. All of the clips feature images of him singing superimposed over a range of background footage, from images of Tehran to eager dolphins behind the glass of an aquarium. His one and only VCD of music videos, produced illegally, is a fruit salad concoction of his family snaps, psychedelic fade-ins, and hip-swinging, finger-clicking Javad clad in polyester. Iranian melodies layered over Arabic rhythms, his songs are emotional rollercoasters of love and loss, loneliness, and the grace of Imam Ali. 1979 turned the lights out on Lalezar and the cabarets of south Tehran, and Javad’s music went under the counter. His star rose in the late 70s at Lalezar, the downtown club strip where Googoosh thrilled a champagne-sipping clientele, while the storm of revolution was gathering. At sixty-one, he’s keen to point out which wrinkles he wants a photographer to Photoshop, but apart from the odd newspaper article, his face has had minimal airtime. Groups of young men in alleyways, fueled by a bottle of homemade vodka and cheap cigarettes, still serenade the night with his songs.Īn ex-National Team wrestler, Javad is a superstar in his own eyes and the eyes of Tehran’s bazaar.
The rhythms of Javad’s music have kept truckers awake across Iran’s deserts for thirty years. Javad Yasari is Iran’s Willie Nelson, and like the country legend, he is the voice of the road.
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