[2][3][1] The brothers had a pioneering role in the modern classical music of Iraq and Kuwait, especially the Iraqi maqam and Kuwaiti sawt genres.

[9][10][2][11] In his childhood, Saleh began studying music in Kuwait from Khaled Al-Bakar, a famous Kuwaiti oud player in the early twentieth century.

[8][9][10] Saleh's first song, "Walla Ajabni Jamalec" (By God, I admire your beauty), is still heard on Gulf radio stations.

[8][9][10] While earlier generations of Arab listeners had been familiar and comfortable with the brothers and their Jewish identity, Arabic radio after the 1970s, increasingly under the control of nationalist movements such as the Ba'ath Party, began to change this by omitting their name, their Jewish identity, or their Israeli citizenship from credits, causing this history to be forgotten; upon his ascent to power in 1979, Saddam Hussein had their names expunged from the Iraqi national archives, re-designating hundreds of their songs as anonymous “folk melodies”.

He also composed for the most famous singers of that era in Iraq,[18] Kuwait,[8] and in the Arab world, such as Salima Pasha, Afifa Iskandar, Nazem al-Ghazali, Umm Kulthum, Mohammed Abdel Wahab and many others.