Turns out that Bob Dylan dug Oum Kalthoum. Here's a paragraph from Al’ America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots by Jonathan Curiel, excerpted here on alternet.org:
Kalsoum, whose last name is often spelled Kalthoum or Khulthum, was Egypt's greatest singer — the equivalent of Barbra Streisand, Billie Holiday, and Maria Callas rolled into one inimitable voice. The daughter of a Muslim cleric, Kalsoum was taught to recite the Quran before she found fame as a secular singer of love songs — songs that were as musically intense as Quranic recitations but eschewed religious proselytizing for lamentations about heartbreak, longing, and plan- ning for a better day. Dylan found inspiration in Kalsoum's music, telling Playboy magazine for a 1978 interview that “She does mostly love and prayer-type songs, with violin-and-drum accompaniment. Her father chanted those prayers and I guess she was so good when she tried singing behind his back that he allowed her to sing professionally, and she's dead now but not forgotten. She's great. She really is. Really great.”
