{"id":283047,"date":"2019-08-01T14:36:10","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T18:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?guid=5e086344213f1357d78f463f1d295bc1"},"modified":"2026-10-15T11:28:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T15:28:45","slug":"hailu-mergia-ethiopian-jazz-cab-driver-newport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/283047","title":{"rendered":"Hailu Mergia, Ethiopian jazz star who drove a D.C. cab, returns to the stage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hailu Mergia, once a star of Ethiopia's Walias Band, spent about 20 years driving a Dulles Airport cab before quitting in 2018 to tour on the back of rediscovered albums and a new record.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"780\" width=\"780\" class=\"size-large wp-image-837803\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/hailu-mergia-perth-festival.jpg?fit=780%2C780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Hailu Mergia performing at the Perth Festival, February 2025\" \/><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Hailu Mergia performing at the Perth Festival, February 2025 (MuggedMelon \/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) [file photo]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Rudi Greenberg of The Washington Post wrote that Mergia would pull over between fares, take out a keyboard and practice alone. He moved to Washington in the early 1980s after the Walias Band toured the region, then recorded Hailu Mergia &amp; His Classical Instrument in 1985 as a one-man band of Rhodes piano, accordion and Moog synthesizer.<\/p>\n<p>He largely stopped public performance in 1991 and opened a restaurant, but kept practicing. In 2013 Brian Shimkovitz of Awesome Tapes From Africa found a Mergia cassette in Ethiopia and reissued it; the label later reissued Wede Harer Guzo with the Dahlak Band and Tche Belew with the Walias Band.<\/p>\n<p>The rediscovery brought new audiences. Indie singer Feist invited Mergia to open for her at D.C.'s Lincoln Theatre in 2017. His 2018 album Lala Belu took a more modern jazz turn while keeping the funky, accordion-led sound.<\/p>\n<p>Mergia, then in his early 70s and living in Fort Washington, Maryland, quit cab driving in October 2018 as bookings grew. He played the Newport Jazz Festival on Aug. 3, 2019, on the Storyville Stage at Fort Adams State Park.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newportri.com\/story\/entertainment\/local\/2019\/08\/01\/superstar-jazz-musician-in-ethiopia-then-dc-cab-driver-now-ready-for-newport-jazz-festival\/4561145007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rudi Greenberg, Newport Daily News \/ The Washington Post<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/express\/2019\/06\/05\/keyboardist-hailu-mergia-left-behind-his-days-superstar-ethiopia-then-world-rediscovered-his-mind-blowing-music\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Washington Post<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hailu Mergia, once a star of Ethiopia&#8217;s Walias Band, spent about 20 years driving a Dulles Airport cab before quitting in 2018 to tour on the back of rediscovered albums and a new record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":837803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/hailu-mergia-perth-festival.jpg?fit=1024%2C1125&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1bDh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283047"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837817,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283047\/revisions\/837817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}