Rebetiko
Encyclopedia
Rebetiko, plural rebetika, (Greek
: ρεμπέτικο, reˈbetiko and ρεμπέτικα respectively), occasionally transliterated as Rembetiko, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek folk music
which have come to be grouped together since the so-called rebetika revival, which started in the 1960s and developed further from the early 1970s onwards.
..The word is closely related, but not identical in meaning, to the word mangas
, ɡas), which means strong Greek guy. The etymology of the word rebetis remains the subject of dispute and uncertainty; an early scholar of rebetiko, Elias Petropoulos
, and the modern Greek lexicographer Giorgos Babiniotis, both offer various suggested derivations, but leave the question open.
as its main instrument. Although nowadays treated as a single genre, rebetiko is, musically speaking, a synthesis of elements of the music of the various areas of the Greek mainland and the Greek islands, Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical chant, and a reference to Byzantine music
.
.
However, the majority of rebetiko songs have been accompanied by instruments capable of playing chords according to the Western harmonic system, and have thereby been harmonized in a manner which corresponds neither with conventional European harmony, nor with Ottoman art music, which is a monophonic form normally not harmonized. Furthermore, rebetika has come to be played on instruments tuned in equal temperament, in direct conflict with the more complex pitch divisions of the makam system.
During the later period of the rebetiko revival there has been a cultural entente between Greek and Turkish musicians, mostly of the younger generations. One consequence of this has been a tendency to overemphasize the makam aspect of rebetiko at the expense of the European components and, most significantly, at the expense of perceiving and problematizing this music's truly syncretic nature.
However, it is important to note in this context that a considerable proportion of the rebetiko repertoire on Greek records until 1936 was not dramatically different from Ottoman café music, except in terms of language and musical "dialect". This portion of the recorded repertoire was played almost exclusively on the common Greek instruments of Ottoman café music, such as Politiki lyra
(πολίτικη λύρα), Byzantine lyra
, oud
, kanonaki
, violin
, santouri or tsimbalo (τσίμπαλο), actually identical with the Hungarian cimbalom, violoncello, and clarinet
.
, and written taksim and ταξίμ (or ταξίμι).
Various other rhythms also, based in Byzantine line
are used too.
, flamenco
, fado
, and tango
, rebetiko grew out of particular urban circumstances. Oftentimes, but by no means always, its lyrics reflect the harsher realities of a marginalized subculture's lifestyle. Thus one finds themes such as crime, drink, drugs, poverty, prostitution and violence, but also a multitude of themes of relevance to Greek people of any social stratum: death, eroticism, exile, exoticism, disease, love, marriage, matchmaking, the mother figure, war, work, and diverse other everyday matters, both happy and sad.
Manos Hatzidakis summarized the key elements in three words with a wide presence in the vocabulary of modern Greek
meraki, kefi, and kaimos (μεράκι, κέφι, καημός: love, joy, and sorrow).
A perhaps over-emphasized theme of rebetiko is the pleasure of using drugs, especially hashish. Rebetiko songs emphasizing such matters have come to be called hasiklidika (χασικλίδικα), although musically speaking they do not differ from the main body of rebetiko songs in any particular way.
, employing instruments of the Byzantine
tradition. During the second half of the 1930s, as rebetiko music gradually acquired its own character, the bouzouki began to emerge as the emblematic instrument of this music, gradually ousting the instruments which had been brought over from Asia Minor.
was apparently not particularly well-known among the refugees from Asia Minor, but had been known by that name in Greece since at least 1835, from which year a drawing by the Danish artist Martinus Rørbye
has survived. It is a view of the studio of the Athens luthier Leonidas Gailas (Λεωνίδας Γάϊλας), whom the artist describes as Fabricatore di bossuchi. The drawing clearly shows a number of bouzouki-like instruments. Despite this evidence, we still know nothing of the early history of instrument's association with what came to be called rebetiko.
Although known in the rebetiko context, and often referred to in song lyrics, well before it was allowed into the recording studio, the bouzouki was first commercially recorded not in Greece, but in America, in 1926. The first recording to feature the instrument clearly in a melodic role, was made in 1929, in New York. Three years later the first true bouzouki solo was recorded by Ioannis Halikias, also in New York, in January 1932.
In Greece the bouzouki had been allowed into a studio for the very first time a few months previously, in October 1931. In the hands of Giorgios Manetas, together with the tsimbalo player Yiannis Livadhitis, it can be heard accompanying the singers Konstantinos Masselos, aka Nouros, and Spahanis, on two discs, three songs in all.
However, it was a whole year later, in October 1932, in the wake of the success of Halikias' New York recording, which immediately met with great success in Greece, that Markos Vamvakaris
made his first recordings with the bouzouki. These recordings marked the real beginning of the bouzouki's recorded career in Greece, a career which continues unbroken to the present day.
. Instruments characteristic of the Ottoman café style Greek songs
included accordion
, politiki (Constantinople) lyra
, clarinet
, kanonaki
, oud
, santouri, tambouras, tsimbalo, or cimbalom, violin
, violoncello and finger-cymbal
s.
Several of these instruments were also used in rebetiko songs of other than Ottoman character. Other instruments heard on rebetiko recordings include: Cretan lyra, double bass
, laouto
, mandola
, mandolin
and piano
. In some recordings, the sound of clinking glass may be heard. This sound is produced by drawing worry beads (komboloi) against a fluted drinking glass, originally an ad hoc and supremely effective rhythmic instrument, probably characteristic of teké and taverna milieux, and subsequently adopted in the recording studios.
, the ouzeri
, the forbidden hashish
, and the prison. In view of the paucity of documentation prior to the era of sound recordings it is difficult to assert further facts on the very early history of this music. There is a certain amount of recorded Greek material from the first two decades of the 20th century, recorded in Constantinople/Istanbul, in Egypt and in America, of which isolated examples have some bearing on rebetiko, such as in the very first case of the use of the word itself on a record label. But there are no recordings from this early period which gives an inkling of the local music of Piraeus such as first emerged on disc in 1931 (see above).
of 1923, huge numbers of refugees settled in Piraeus
, Thessaloniki
and other harbor cities. They brought with them both European and Anatolian musical elements and musical instruments, a creation by Greek refugees, particularly Ottoman café music, but also, and often neglected in such accounts, a somewhat Italianate style with mandolins and choral singing in parallel thirds and sixths. Some of these Greek musicians from Asia Minor were highly competent musicians who quickly became studío directors and A&R men for the major companies. From the middle of the 1920s a substantial number of Anatolian-style songs were recorded in Greece, whereas examples of Piraeus-style rebetiko song first reached shellac in 1931 (see above).
and Batis.3rd ed. 1983, pp. 24–27.
This historical process has led to a currently used terminology intended to distinguish between the clearly Asia Minor oriental style, often called "Smyrneïka", and the bouzouki-based style of the 1930s, often called Piraeus style.
By the end of the 1930s rebetiko had reached what can reasonably be called its classic phase, in which elements of the early Piraeus
style, elements of the Asia Minor style, and clearly Greek folk
and Byzantine
music elements, had fused to generate a genuinely syncretic musical form. Simultaneously, with the onset of censorship, a process began in which rebetiko lyrics slowly began to lose what had been their defining underworld character. This process extended over more than a decade.
Censorship
In 1936, the 4th of August Regime
under Ioannis Metaxas
was established and with it, the onset of censorship
. Some of the subject matter of rebetiko songs was now considered disreputable and unacceptable. During this period, when the Metaxas dictatorship subjected all song lyrics to censorship, song composers would rewrite lyrics, or practice self-censorship before submitting lyrics for approval. The music itself was not subject to censorship, although proclamations were made recommending the "europeanisation" of the regarded outcoming Anatolian music, which led to certain radio stations banning "amanedes" in 1938, i.e. on the basis of music rather than lyrics. This was, however, not bouzouki music. The term amanedes, (sing. amanes, gr. αμανέδες, sing. αμανές) refers to a kind of improvised sung lament, in ummeasured time, sung in a particular dromos/makam. The amanedes were perhaps the most pointedly oriental kind of songs in the Greek repertoire of the time.
References to drugs and other criminal or disreputable activities now vanished from recordings made in Greek studios, to reappear briefly in the first recordings made at the resumption of recording activity in 1946. In the United States, however, a flourishing Greek musical production continued, with song lyrics apparently unaffected by censorship, (see below) although, strangely, the bouzouki continued to be rare on American recordings until after WWII.
Vassilis Tsitsanis
now became a leading personality in rebetiko music. His musical career had started in 1936, and continued during the war despite the occupation. He was both a brilliant bouzouki player and a prolific composer, with hundreds of songs to his credit. After the war he continued to develop his style in new directions, and under his wing, singers such as Sotiria Bellou
, Stella Haskil, Marika Ninou
and Prodromos Tsaousakis made their appearance.
Parallel to the post-war career of Tsitsanis, the career of Manolis Chiotis
took Greek popular music in more radically new directions. Chiotis was a bold innovator, importing South American rhythms such as the mambo, and concentrating on songs in a decidedly lighter vein than the characteristic ambiance of rebetiko songs. Perhaps most significantly of all, Chiotis, himself a virtuoso not only on the bouzouki but on guitar, violin and outi (oud), was responsible for introducing and popularizing the modified 4-course bouzouki (tetrahordho) in 1956. Chiotis was already a seemingly fully-fledged virtuoso on the traditional 3-course instrument by his teens, but the guitar-based tuning of his new instrument, in combination with his playful delight in extreme virtuosity, led to new concepts of bouzouki playing which came to define the style used in laïki mousiki and other forms of bouzouki music which could no longer really be called rebetiko in any sense.
A comparable development also took place on the vocal side. In 1952 a young singer named Stelios Kazantzidis
recorded a couple of rebetika songs that were quite successful. Although he would continue in the same style for a few years it was quickly realized, by all parties involved, that his singing technique and expressive abilities were too good to be contained within the rebetiko idiom. Soon well-known composers of rebetika—like Kaldaras, Chiotis, Klouvatos—started to write songs tailored to Stelios powerful voice and this created a further shift in rebetika music. The new songs had a more complex melodic structure and were usually more dramatic in character. Kazantzidis went on to become a star of the emerging laiki music.
Kazantzidis, however, did not only contribute to the demise of classical rebetika (of the Piraeus style that is). Paradoxically, he was also one of the forerunners of its revival. In 1956 he started his cooperation with Vassilis Tsitsanis who, contrary to the previously mentioned composers, did not write new songs for Kazantzidis but instead gave him some of his old ones to reinterpret. Kazantzidis, thus, sung and popularized such rebetika classics as "Synnefiasmeni Kyriaki", "Bakse tsifliki" and "Ta Kavourakia". These songs, and many others, previously unknown to the wide public suddenly became cherished and sought-after.
Interestingly, at about the same time many of the old time performers—both singers and bouzouki players—abandoned the musical scene of Greece. Some of them died prematurely (Haskil, Ninou), others emigrated to the USA (Binis, Evgenikos, Tzouanakos, Kaplanis), while some just quit music life for other work (Pagioumtzis, Genitsaris). This, of course, created a void which had to be filled with new "blood". In the beginning the new recruits—like for example Kolokotronis, Grey, and Kazantzidis—stayed within the bounds of classical rebetica. Soon, however, their youthful enthusiasm and different experiences found expression in new stylistic venues which eventually changed the old idiom.
This combined situation contributed, during the 1950s, to the almost total eclipse of rebetiko by other popular styles. In fact, somewhat confusingly, from at least the 1950s, during which period rebetiko songs were not usually referred to as a separate musical category, but more specifically on the basis of lyrics, the term "laïki mousiki" (λαϊκή μουσική), or "laïka", (λαϊκα) covered a broad category of Greek popular music, including songs with bouzouki, and songs that today would without doubt be classified as rebetiko. The term in its turn derives from the word laos (λάος) which translates best as "the people".
recorded a number of songs by Markos Vamvakaris
, and Vamvakaris himself made his first recording since 1954. During the same period, writers such as Elias Petropoulos
began researching and publishing their earliest attempts to write on rebetiko as a subject in itself. The bouzouki, unquestioned as the basic musical instrument of rebetiko music, now began to make inroads into other areas of Greek music, not least due to the virtuosity of Manolis Chiotis. From 1960 onwards prominent Greek composers such as Mikis Theodorakis
and Manos Hatzidakis employed bouzouki virtuosi such as Manolis Chiotis, Giorgios Zambetas, and Thanassis Polyhandriotis in their recordings.
The next phase of the rebetiko revival can be said to have started in the beginning of the 1970s, when LP reissues of 78 rpm recordings, both anthologies and records devoted to individual artists, began to appear in larger numbers. This phase of the revival was initially, and is still to a large extent, characterized by a desire to recapture the style of the original recordings, whereas the first phase tended to present old songs in the current musical idiom of Greek popular music, laïki mousiki. Many singers emerged and became popular during this period. It was during the 1970s that the first work which aimed at popularizing rebetiko outside the Greek language sphere appeared1st ed. 1975. and the first English-language academic work was completed.
During the 1970s a number of older artists made new recordings of the older repertoire, accompanied by bouzouki players of a younger generation. Giorgios Mouflouzelis, for example, recorded a number of LPs, though he had never recorded during his youth in the 78 rpm era. The most significant contribution in this respect was perhaps a series of LPs recorded by the singer Sotiria Bellou
, who had had a fairly successful career from 1947 onwards, initially under the wing of Tsitsanis. These newer recordings were instrumental in bringing rebetiko to the ears of many who were unfamiliar with the recordings of the 78 rpm era, and are still available today as CDs.
An important aspect of the revival of the late 1960s and early 1970s was the element of protest, resistance and revolt against the military dictatorship of the junta years. This was perhaps because rebetiko lyrics, although seldom directly political, were easily construed as subversive by the nature of their subject matter and their association in popular memory with previous periods of conflict.
Today, rebetiko songs are still popular in Greece, both in contemporary interpretations which make no attempt to be other than contemporary in style, and in interpretations aspiring to emulate the old styles. The genre is a subject of growing international research, and its popularity outside Greece is now well-established.
The music industry in the United States came to play a particular role from the mid-1930s onwards in recording rebetiko lyrics which would not have passed the censors in Greece. This phenomenon came to repeat itself during the period of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974. A notable example of American recording studios permitting some 'bolder' lyrics can be found in the LP "Otan Kapnizei O Loulas", i.e. "When They Smoke The Hookah", released in 1973. Releasing this album in Greece, with its overt references to various aspects of drug use, would have been impossible at that time. It is worth noting, however, that the censorship laws invoked in Greece by Metaxas were never officially revoked until 1981, seven years after the fall of the junta. A further characteristic of American Greek recordings of the time was the recording of songs in the Anatolian musical styles of rebetiko, which continued in the United States well into the 1950s. Even songs originally recorded with typical bouzouki-baglamas-guitar accompaniment could appear in Anatolian garments.
After WWII, beginning in the early 1950s, many Greek rebetiko musicians and singers traveled from Greece to tour the United States, and some stayed for longer periods. Prominent among them were Ioannis Papaioannou, Manolis Chiotis
, Vassilis Tsitsanis
, Iordanis Tsomidis, Roza Eskenazi
, Stratos Pagioumdzis, Stavros Tzouanakos, and Giannis Tatasopoulos
, of whom the latter three died in the United States.
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
: ρεμπέτικο, reˈbetiko and ρεμπέτικα respectively), occasionally transliterated as Rembetiko, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek folk music
Greek folk music
Greek folk music includes a variety of Greek styles played by ethnic Greeks in Greece, Cyprus, Australia, the United States and elsewhere. Apart from the common music found all-around Greece, there are distinct types of folk music, sometimes related to the history or simply the taste of the...
which have come to be grouped together since the so-called rebetika revival, which started in the 1960s and developed further from the early 1970s onwards.
Definition and etymology
The word rebetiko or plural rebetika is generally assumed to be an adjectival form derived from the Greek word rebetis . The word rebetis, is today construed to mean a person who embodies aspects of character, dress, behavior, morals and ethics associated with a particular subcultureSubculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
..The word is closely related, but not identical in meaning, to the word mangas
Mangas
Manges is the name of a social group in the Belle Époque era's counterculture of Greece . The nearest English equivalent to the term mangas is wide boy, or spiv...
, ɡas), which means strong Greek guy. The etymology of the word rebetis remains the subject of dispute and uncertainty; an early scholar of rebetiko, Elias Petropoulos
Elias Petropoulos
Elias Petropoulos , who was born in Greece but spent much of his life in France, holds a unique place in the intellectual life of Europe...
, and the modern Greek lexicographer Giorgos Babiniotis, both offer various suggested derivations, but leave the question open.
Musical bases of rebetiko
Rebetiko is a kind of Greek cultural music that developed around ports and urban centres in the end of the 19th and up to the first half of the 20th century, with the bouzoukiBouzouki
The bouzouki , is a musical instrument with Greek origin in the lute family. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but...
as its main instrument. Although nowadays treated as a single genre, rebetiko is, musically speaking, a synthesis of elements of the music of the various areas of the Greek mainland and the Greek islands, Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical chant, and a reference to Byzantine music
Byzantine music
Byzantine music is the music of the Byzantine Empire composed to Greek texts as ceremonial, festival, or church music. Greek and foreign historians agree that the ecclesiastical tones and in general the whole system of Byzantine music is closely related to the ancient Greek system...
.
Melody and harmony
The melodies of most rebetiko songs are thus often considered to follow one or more dromoi (δρόμοι) (Greek for 'roads' or 'routes'; singular is dromos (δρόμος)). The names of the dromoi are derived in all but a few cases from the names of various Turkish modes, known in Turkish as makamMakam
Makam In Turkish classical music, a system of melody types called makam provides a complex set of rules for composing and performance...
.
However, the majority of rebetiko songs have been accompanied by instruments capable of playing chords according to the Western harmonic system, and have thereby been harmonized in a manner which corresponds neither with conventional European harmony, nor with Ottoman art music, which is a monophonic form normally not harmonized. Furthermore, rebetika has come to be played on instruments tuned in equal temperament, in direct conflict with the more complex pitch divisions of the makam system.
During the later period of the rebetiko revival there has been a cultural entente between Greek and Turkish musicians, mostly of the younger generations. One consequence of this has been a tendency to overemphasize the makam aspect of rebetiko at the expense of the European components and, most significantly, at the expense of perceiving and problematizing this music's truly syncretic nature.
However, it is important to note in this context that a considerable proportion of the rebetiko repertoire on Greek records until 1936 was not dramatically different from Ottoman café music, except in terms of language and musical "dialect". This portion of the recorded repertoire was played almost exclusively on the common Greek instruments of Ottoman café music, such as Politiki lyra
Lyre
The lyre is a stringed musical instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later. The word comes from the Greek "λύρα" and the earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists", written in Linear B syllabic script...
(πολίτικη λύρα), Byzantine lyra
Byzantine lyra
The Byzantine lyra or lira , was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine Empire and is an ancestor of most European bowed instruments, including the violin. In its popular form the lyra was a pear-shaped instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by stopping...
, oud
Oud
The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...
, kanonaki
Kanun (Instrument)
The Qanun is a string instrument found in the 10th century in Farab in Turkestan...
, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, santouri or tsimbalo (τσίμπαλο), actually identical with the Hungarian cimbalom, violoncello, and clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
.
Taxim
There is one component within the rebetiko tradition which is common to many musical styles within Arabo-Turkish musical spheres. This is the freely improvised unmeasured prelude, within a given dromos/makam, which can occur at the beginning or in the middle of a song. This is known in Greek as taxim or taximi after the Arabic word usually transliterated as taqsimTaqsim
Taqsim is the name of a melodic improvisation style that could be metric or non-metric, which usually precedes a composition in Arabic, Turkish, Greek, and other Middle Eastern music. The taqsim is usually performed by a solo instrument, yet sometimes the soloist can be backed by a percussionist...
, and written taksim and ταξίμ (or ταξίμι).
Rhythms
Most rebetiko songs are based on traditional Greek or Anatolian (-Byzantine) dance rhythms. Most common are:- SyrtosSyrtosSyrtos , is the collective name of a group of Greek folk dances. Syrtos, along with its relative kalamatianos, are the most popular dances throughout Greece and are frequently danced by the Greek diaspora worldwide. They are very popular in social gatherings, weddings and religious festivals...
, general name for many Greek dances (including the NisiotikaNisiotikaNisiotika is the name of the dances of Greek islands including a variety of Greek styles, played by ethnic Greeks in Greece, Cyprus, Australia, the United States and elsewhere....
), (mostly a 4/4 meter in various forms) - ZeibekikoZeibekikoZeibekiko is a Greek folk dance with a rhythmic pattern of 9/4 or else 9/8 . The name of the dance derives from the Zeibek warriors of Anatolia. It is danced by one person only and is of free choreographic structure, which is often refers to ancient Greek tragedy...
, (a 9/4 or a 9/8 meter, in its various forms) - SirtakiSirtakiSirtaki or syrtaki is a popular dance of Greek origin, choreographed, by Giorgos Provias for the 1964 film Zorba the Greek. It is not a traditional Greek folkdance, but a mixture of the slow and fast versions of the hasapiko dance...
, including various kinds of Greek music. It is also the fast version of Chasapiko (like 4/4 and 2/4 meter) - HasapikoHasapikoThe Hasapiko , is a Greek folk dance from Constantinople. The dance originated in the Middle Ages as a battle mime with swords performed by the Greek butchers guild, which adopted it from the military of Byzantine era. In Constantinople during the Byzantine times, it was called in Greek...
, (a 4/4 meter and the fast version Hasaposerviko in a 2/4 meter) - Antikristos or Karsilamas and Argilamas (a 9/8 meter)
- KamilierikosKamilierikoskamilierikos or kamilieriko, is a kind of a Greek traditional dance, similar with fast zeibekiko and antikristos. The Kamilierikos was danced by prisoned rebetes. Riders of the camels used to dance it as well. Today, kamilierikos is very widespread in rebetiko and laiko music.-External links:*...
, (a 9/8 meter) and Aptalikos, broken down in two sixteenths, (slow version a 9/4 and fast version a 9/16 meter in various forms) - TsifteteliTsifteteliThe Tsifteteli , is a rhythm and dance of Anatolia and the Balkans with a rhythmic pattern of 2/4. The dance is probably of Turkish origin and in the Turkish language it means "double stringed", taken from the violin playing style that is practiced in this kind of music...
, dance of women, (a 4/4)
Various other rhythms also, based in Byzantine line
Byzantine music
Byzantine music is the music of the Byzantine Empire composed to Greek texts as ceremonial, festival, or church music. Greek and foreign historians agree that the ecclesiastical tones and in general the whole system of Byzantine music is closely related to the ancient Greek system...
are used too.
Lyrics
Like several other urban subcultural musical forms such as the bluesBlues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
, fado
Fado
Fado is a music genre which can be traced to the 1820s in Portugal, but probably with much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar, Rui Vieira Nery, states that "the only reliable information on the history of Fado was orally transmitted and goes back to the 1820s and 1830s at best...
, and tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...
, rebetiko grew out of particular urban circumstances. Oftentimes, but by no means always, its lyrics reflect the harsher realities of a marginalized subculture's lifestyle. Thus one finds themes such as crime, drink, drugs, poverty, prostitution and violence, but also a multitude of themes of relevance to Greek people of any social stratum: death, eroticism, exile, exoticism, disease, love, marriage, matchmaking, the mother figure, war, work, and diverse other everyday matters, both happy and sad.
Manos Hatzidakis summarized the key elements in three words with a wide presence in the vocabulary of modern Greek
Modern Greek
Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...
meraki, kefi, and kaimos (μεράκι, κέφι, καημός: love, joy, and sorrow).
A perhaps over-emphasized theme of rebetiko is the pleasure of using drugs, especially hashish. Rebetiko songs emphasizing such matters have come to be called hasiklidika (χασικλίδικα), although musically speaking they do not differ from the main body of rebetiko songs in any particular way.
Instruments of rebetiko
The first rebetiko songs to be recorded, as mentioned above, were mostly in Smyrnaic styleSmyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...
, employing instruments of the Byzantine
Ionians
The Ionians were one of the four major tribes into which the Classical Greeks considered the population of Hellenes to have been divided...
tradition. During the second half of the 1930s, as rebetiko music gradually acquired its own character, the bouzouki began to emerge as the emblematic instrument of this music, gradually ousting the instruments which had been brought over from Asia Minor.
The bouzouki
The bouzoukiBouzouki
The bouzouki , is a musical instrument with Greek origin in the lute family. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but...
was apparently not particularly well-known among the refugees from Asia Minor, but had been known by that name in Greece since at least 1835, from which year a drawing by the Danish artist Martinus Rørbye
Martinus Rørbye
Martinus Christian Wesseltoft Rørbye was a Danish painter, known both for genre works and landscapes. He was a central figure of the Golden Age of Danish painting during the first half of the 19th century....
has survived. It is a view of the studio of the Athens luthier Leonidas Gailas (Λεωνίδας Γάϊλας), whom the artist describes as Fabricatore di bossuchi. The drawing clearly shows a number of bouzouki-like instruments. Despite this evidence, we still know nothing of the early history of instrument's association with what came to be called rebetiko.
Although known in the rebetiko context, and often referred to in song lyrics, well before it was allowed into the recording studio, the bouzouki was first commercially recorded not in Greece, but in America, in 1926. The first recording to feature the instrument clearly in a melodic role, was made in 1929, in New York. Three years later the first true bouzouki solo was recorded by Ioannis Halikias, also in New York, in January 1932.
In Greece the bouzouki had been allowed into a studio for the very first time a few months previously, in October 1931. In the hands of Giorgios Manetas, together with the tsimbalo player Yiannis Livadhitis, it can be heard accompanying the singers Konstantinos Masselos, aka Nouros, and Spahanis, on two discs, three songs in all.
However, it was a whole year later, in October 1932, in the wake of the success of Halikias' New York recording, which immediately met with great success in Greece, that Markos Vamvakaris
Markos Vamvakaris
Markos Vamvakaris , was a rebetiko musician. He is universally referred to by rebetiko writers and fans simply by his first name, Markos...
made his first recordings with the bouzouki. These recordings marked the real beginning of the bouzouki's recorded career in Greece, a career which continues unbroken to the present day.
Other instruments
The core instruments of rebetiko, from the mid-1930s onwards, have been the bouzouki, the baglamas and the guitarGuitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
. Instruments characteristic of the Ottoman café style Greek songs
Music of Greece
The music of Greece is as diverse and celebrated as its history. Greek music separates into two parts: Greek traditional music and Byzantine music, with more eastern sounds...
included accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
, politiki (Constantinople) lyra
Byzantine lyra
The Byzantine lyra or lira , was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine Empire and is an ancestor of most European bowed instruments, including the violin. In its popular form the lyra was a pear-shaped instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by stopping...
, clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
, kanonaki
Kanun (Instrument)
The Qanun is a string instrument found in the 10th century in Farab in Turkestan...
, oud
Oud
The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...
, santouri, tambouras, tsimbalo, or cimbalom, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, violoncello and finger-cymbal
Zilia
Zilia is a commune in the Haute-Corse department of France on the island of Corsica.-Geography:The municipality is part of the canton of Calenzana. Its area is 1401ha which includes 700ha of woods...
s.
Several of these instruments were also used in rebetiko songs of other than Ottoman character. Other instruments heard on rebetiko recordings include: Cretan lyra, double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
, laouto
Laouto
The laouto is a long-neck fretted instrument of the lute family, found in Greece, and similar in appearance to the oud. It is played in most respects like the oud .- Construction :...
, mandola
Mandola
The mandola or tenor mandola is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin: the four double courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola , a fifth lower than a mandolin...
, mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
. In some recordings, the sound of clinking glass may be heard. This sound is produced by drawing worry beads (komboloi) against a fluted drinking glass, originally an ad hoc and supremely effective rhythmic instrument, probably characteristic of teké and taverna milieux, and subsequently adopted in the recording studios.
History
Initially a music associated with the lower classes, rebetiko later reached greater general acceptance as the rough edges of its overt subcultural character were softened and polished, sometimes to the point of unrecognizability. Then, when the original form was almost forgotten, and its original protagonists either dead, or in some cases almost consigned to oblivion, it became, from the 1960s onwards, a revived musical form of wide popularity, especially among younger people of the time.Origins
Rebetiko probably originated in the music of the larger Greek cities, most of them coastal, in today's Greece and Asia Minor. In these cities the cradles of rebetiko were likely to be the tavernaTaverna
Taverna refers to a small restaurant serving Greek cuisine, not to be confused with "tavern". The Greek word is ταβέρνα and is originally derived from the Latin word taberna...
, the ouzeri
Ouzeri
An ouzeria is a type of Greek tavern which serves ouzo and mezedes, small finger foods.-Sources:*John Freely. Strolling through Athens: fourteen unforgettable walks through Europe's oldest city. Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2004 ISBN 1850435952, 9781850435952...
, the forbidden hashish
Hashish
Hashish is a cannabis preparation composed of compressed stalked resin glands, called trichomes, collected from the unfertilized buds of the cannabis plant. It contains the same active ingredients but in higher concentrations than unsifted buds or leaves...
, and the prison. In view of the paucity of documentation prior to the era of sound recordings it is difficult to assert further facts on the very early history of this music. There is a certain amount of recorded Greek material from the first two decades of the 20th century, recorded in Constantinople/Istanbul, in Egypt and in America, of which isolated examples have some bearing on rebetiko, such as in the very first case of the use of the word itself on a record label. But there are no recordings from this early period which gives an inkling of the local music of Piraeus such as first emerged on disc in 1931 (see above).
1922–1932
In the wake of the population exchangePopulation exchange between Greece and Turkey
The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey was based upon religious identity, and involved the Greek Orthodox citizens of Turkey and the Muslim citizens of Greece...
of 1923, huge numbers of refugees settled in Piraeus
Piraeus
Piraeus is a city in the region of Attica, Greece. Piraeus is located within the Athens Urban Area, 12 km southwest from its city center , and lies along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf....
, Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
and other harbor cities. They brought with them both European and Anatolian musical elements and musical instruments, a creation by Greek refugees, particularly Ottoman café music, but also, and often neglected in such accounts, a somewhat Italianate style with mandolins and choral singing in parallel thirds and sixths. Some of these Greek musicians from Asia Minor were highly competent musicians who quickly became studío directors and A&R men for the major companies. From the middle of the 1920s a substantial number of Anatolian-style songs were recorded in Greece, whereas examples of Piraeus-style rebetiko song first reached shellac in 1931 (see above).
The 1930s
During the 1930s, the relatively sophisticated musical styles met with, and cross-fertilised, the more heavy-hitting local urban styles exemplified by the earliest recordings of Markos VamvakarisMarkos Vamvakaris
Markos Vamvakaris , was a rebetiko musician. He is universally referred to by rebetiko writers and fans simply by his first name, Markos...
and Batis.3rd ed. 1983, pp. 24–27.
This historical process has led to a currently used terminology intended to distinguish between the clearly Asia Minor oriental style, often called "Smyrneïka", and the bouzouki-based style of the 1930s, often called Piraeus style.
By the end of the 1930s rebetiko had reached what can reasonably be called its classic phase, in which elements of the early Piraeus
Piraeus
Piraeus is a city in the region of Attica, Greece. Piraeus is located within the Athens Urban Area, 12 km southwest from its city center , and lies along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf....
style, elements of the Asia Minor style, and clearly Greek folk
Greek folk music
Greek folk music includes a variety of Greek styles played by ethnic Greeks in Greece, Cyprus, Australia, the United States and elsewhere. Apart from the common music found all-around Greece, there are distinct types of folk music, sometimes related to the history or simply the taste of the...
and Byzantine
Byzantine music
Byzantine music is the music of the Byzantine Empire composed to Greek texts as ceremonial, festival, or church music. Greek and foreign historians agree that the ecclesiastical tones and in general the whole system of Byzantine music is closely related to the ancient Greek system...
music elements, had fused to generate a genuinely syncretic musical form. Simultaneously, with the onset of censorship, a process began in which rebetiko lyrics slowly began to lose what had been their defining underworld character. This process extended over more than a decade.
Censorship
In 1936, the 4th of August Regime
4th of August Regime
The 4th of August Regime , commonly also known as the Metaxas Regime , was an authoritarian regime under the leadership of General Ioannis Metaxas that ruled Greece from 1936 to 1941...
under Ioannis Metaxas
Ioannis Metaxas
Ioannis Metaxas was a Greek general, politician, and dictator, serving as Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941...
was established and with it, the onset of censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
. Some of the subject matter of rebetiko songs was now considered disreputable and unacceptable. During this period, when the Metaxas dictatorship subjected all song lyrics to censorship, song composers would rewrite lyrics, or practice self-censorship before submitting lyrics for approval. The music itself was not subject to censorship, although proclamations were made recommending the "europeanisation" of the regarded outcoming Anatolian music, which led to certain radio stations banning "amanedes" in 1938, i.e. on the basis of music rather than lyrics. This was, however, not bouzouki music. The term amanedes, (sing. amanes, gr. αμανέδες, sing. αμανές) refers to a kind of improvised sung lament, in ummeasured time, sung in a particular dromos/makam. The amanedes were perhaps the most pointedly oriental kind of songs in the Greek repertoire of the time.
References to drugs and other criminal or disreputable activities now vanished from recordings made in Greek studios, to reappear briefly in the first recordings made at the resumption of recording activity in 1946. In the United States, however, a flourishing Greek musical production continued, with song lyrics apparently unaffected by censorship, (see below) although, strangely, the bouzouki continued to be rare on American recordings until after WWII.
The postwar period
Recording activities ceased during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II (1941–1944), and did not resume until 1946; that year, during a very short period, a handful of uncensored songs with drug references were recorded, several in multiple versions with different singers.Vassilis Tsitsanis
Vassilis Tsitsanis
Vassilis Tsitsanis was a Greek songwriter and bouzouki player. He became one of the leading Greek composers of his time and is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern Rebetika. Tsitsanis wrote more than 500 songs and is still remembered as an extraordinary bouzouki...
now became a leading personality in rebetiko music. His musical career had started in 1936, and continued during the war despite the occupation. He was both a brilliant bouzouki player and a prolific composer, with hundreds of songs to his credit. After the war he continued to develop his style in new directions, and under his wing, singers such as Sotiria Bellou
Sotiria Bellou
Sotiria Bellou was a famous Greek singer and performer of the Greek rebetiko style of music. She was one of the most famous rebetisas of all, mentioned in many music guides, and a contributor to the 1984 British Documentary entitled Music of the Outsiders...
, Stella Haskil, Marika Ninou
Marika Ninou
Marika Ninou , was an Armenian-Greek rebetiko singer, born Evangelia Atamian .-Biography:...
and Prodromos Tsaousakis made their appearance.
Manolis Chiotis
Manolis Chiotis was a Greek Rebetiko composer, singer and bouzouki player. He was born on March 21, 1920 in Thessaloniki and died in 1970.- See also :* Bouzouki* Rebetes* Rebetiko* Laiko* Greek nightclubs* Greek music...
took Greek popular music in more radically new directions. Chiotis was a bold innovator, importing South American rhythms such as the mambo, and concentrating on songs in a decidedly lighter vein than the characteristic ambiance of rebetiko songs. Perhaps most significantly of all, Chiotis, himself a virtuoso not only on the bouzouki but on guitar, violin and outi (oud), was responsible for introducing and popularizing the modified 4-course bouzouki (tetrahordho) in 1956. Chiotis was already a seemingly fully-fledged virtuoso on the traditional 3-course instrument by his teens, but the guitar-based tuning of his new instrument, in combination with his playful delight in extreme virtuosity, led to new concepts of bouzouki playing which came to define the style used in laïki mousiki and other forms of bouzouki music which could no longer really be called rebetiko in any sense.
A comparable development also took place on the vocal side. In 1952 a young singer named Stelios Kazantzidis
Stelios Kazantzidis
Stylianos Kazantzidis was a prominent Greek singer. A leading singer of Greek popular music, or Laïkó, he collaborated with many of Greece's foremost composers.-Biography :...
recorded a couple of rebetika songs that were quite successful. Although he would continue in the same style for a few years it was quickly realized, by all parties involved, that his singing technique and expressive abilities were too good to be contained within the rebetiko idiom. Soon well-known composers of rebetika—like Kaldaras, Chiotis, Klouvatos—started to write songs tailored to Stelios powerful voice and this created a further shift in rebetika music. The new songs had a more complex melodic structure and were usually more dramatic in character. Kazantzidis went on to become a star of the emerging laiki music.
Kazantzidis, however, did not only contribute to the demise of classical rebetika (of the Piraeus style that is). Paradoxically, he was also one of the forerunners of its revival. In 1956 he started his cooperation with Vassilis Tsitsanis who, contrary to the previously mentioned composers, did not write new songs for Kazantzidis but instead gave him some of his old ones to reinterpret. Kazantzidis, thus, sung and popularized such rebetika classics as "Synnefiasmeni Kyriaki", "Bakse tsifliki" and "Ta Kavourakia". These songs, and many others, previously unknown to the wide public suddenly became cherished and sought-after.
Interestingly, at about the same time many of the old time performers—both singers and bouzouki players—abandoned the musical scene of Greece. Some of them died prematurely (Haskil, Ninou), others emigrated to the USA (Binis, Evgenikos, Tzouanakos, Kaplanis), while some just quit music life for other work (Pagioumtzis, Genitsaris). This, of course, created a void which had to be filled with new "blood". In the beginning the new recruits—like for example Kolokotronis, Grey, and Kazantzidis—stayed within the bounds of classical rebetica. Soon, however, their youthful enthusiasm and different experiences found expression in new stylistic venues which eventually changed the old idiom.
This combined situation contributed, during the 1950s, to the almost total eclipse of rebetiko by other popular styles. In fact, somewhat confusingly, from at least the 1950s, during which period rebetiko songs were not usually referred to as a separate musical category, but more specifically on the basis of lyrics, the term "laïki mousiki" (λαϊκή μουσική), or "laïka", (λαϊκα) covered a broad category of Greek popular music, including songs with bouzouki, and songs that today would without doubt be classified as rebetiko. The term in its turn derives from the word laos (λάος) which translates best as "the people".
The revival of rebetiko
The first phase of the rebetiko revival can perhaps be said to have begun around 1960. In that year the singer Grigoris BithikotsisGrigoris Bithikotsis
Grigoris Bithikotsis was a popular Greek folk singer/songwriter with a career spanning five decades.-Biography:...
recorded a number of songs by Markos Vamvakaris
Markos Vamvakaris
Markos Vamvakaris , was a rebetiko musician. He is universally referred to by rebetiko writers and fans simply by his first name, Markos...
, and Vamvakaris himself made his first recording since 1954. During the same period, writers such as Elias Petropoulos
Elias Petropoulos
Elias Petropoulos , who was born in Greece but spent much of his life in France, holds a unique place in the intellectual life of Europe...
began researching and publishing their earliest attempts to write on rebetiko as a subject in itself. The bouzouki, unquestioned as the basic musical instrument of rebetiko music, now began to make inroads into other areas of Greek music, not least due to the virtuosity of Manolis Chiotis. From 1960 onwards prominent Greek composers such as Mikis Theodorakis
Mikis Theodorakis
Mikis Theodorakis is one of the most renowned Greek songwriters and composers. Internationally, he is probably best known for his songs and for his scores for the films Zorba the Greek , Z , and Serpico .Politically, he identified with the left until the late 1980s; in 1989, he ran as an...
and Manos Hatzidakis employed bouzouki virtuosi such as Manolis Chiotis, Giorgios Zambetas, and Thanassis Polyhandriotis in their recordings.
The next phase of the rebetiko revival can be said to have started in the beginning of the 1970s, when LP reissues of 78 rpm recordings, both anthologies and records devoted to individual artists, began to appear in larger numbers. This phase of the revival was initially, and is still to a large extent, characterized by a desire to recapture the style of the original recordings, whereas the first phase tended to present old songs in the current musical idiom of Greek popular music, laïki mousiki. Many singers emerged and became popular during this period. It was during the 1970s that the first work which aimed at popularizing rebetiko outside the Greek language sphere appeared1st ed. 1975. and the first English-language academic work was completed.
During the 1970s a number of older artists made new recordings of the older repertoire, accompanied by bouzouki players of a younger generation. Giorgios Mouflouzelis, for example, recorded a number of LPs, though he had never recorded during his youth in the 78 rpm era. The most significant contribution in this respect was perhaps a series of LPs recorded by the singer Sotiria Bellou
Sotiria Bellou
Sotiria Bellou was a famous Greek singer and performer of the Greek rebetiko style of music. She was one of the most famous rebetisas of all, mentioned in many music guides, and a contributor to the 1984 British Documentary entitled Music of the Outsiders...
, who had had a fairly successful career from 1947 onwards, initially under the wing of Tsitsanis. These newer recordings were instrumental in bringing rebetiko to the ears of many who were unfamiliar with the recordings of the 78 rpm era, and are still available today as CDs.
An important aspect of the revival of the late 1960s and early 1970s was the element of protest, resistance and revolt against the military dictatorship of the junta years. This was perhaps because rebetiko lyrics, although seldom directly political, were easily construed as subversive by the nature of their subject matter and their association in popular memory with previous periods of conflict.
Today, rebetiko songs are still popular in Greece, both in contemporary interpretations which make no attempt to be other than contemporary in style, and in interpretations aspiring to emulate the old styles. The genre is a subject of growing international research, and its popularity outside Greece is now well-established.
Rebetiko in the United States
Greek emigration to the United States started in earnest towards the end of the 19th century. From then onwards, and in the years following the Asia Minor Disaster, until immigration became restricted in the mid-1920s, a great number of Greeks emigrated to the United States, bringing their musical traditions with them. American companies began recording Greek music performed by these immigrants as early as 1896. The first Greek-American recording enterprises made their appearance in 1919. From the latter years of the second decade of the century there exist a number of recordings that can be considered as rebetiko, a few years before such songs began to appear on recordings in Greece.The music industry in the United States came to play a particular role from the mid-1930s onwards in recording rebetiko lyrics which would not have passed the censors in Greece. This phenomenon came to repeat itself during the period of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974. A notable example of American recording studios permitting some 'bolder' lyrics can be found in the LP "Otan Kapnizei O Loulas", i.e. "When They Smoke The Hookah", released in 1973. Releasing this album in Greece, with its overt references to various aspects of drug use, would have been impossible at that time. It is worth noting, however, that the censorship laws invoked in Greece by Metaxas were never officially revoked until 1981, seven years after the fall of the junta. A further characteristic of American Greek recordings of the time was the recording of songs in the Anatolian musical styles of rebetiko, which continued in the United States well into the 1950s. Even songs originally recorded with typical bouzouki-baglamas-guitar accompaniment could appear in Anatolian garments.
After WWII, beginning in the early 1950s, many Greek rebetiko musicians and singers traveled from Greece to tour the United States, and some stayed for longer periods. Prominent among them were Ioannis Papaioannou, Manolis Chiotis
Manolis Chiotis
Manolis Chiotis was a Greek Rebetiko composer, singer and bouzouki player. He was born on March 21, 1920 in Thessaloniki and died in 1970.- See also :* Bouzouki* Rebetes* Rebetiko* Laiko* Greek nightclubs* Greek music...
, Vassilis Tsitsanis
Vassilis Tsitsanis
Vassilis Tsitsanis was a Greek songwriter and bouzouki player. He became one of the leading Greek composers of his time and is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern Rebetika. Tsitsanis wrote more than 500 songs and is still remembered as an extraordinary bouzouki...
, Iordanis Tsomidis, Roza Eskenazi
Roza Eskenazi
Roza Eskenazi was a famous Jewish-Greek singer of rebetiko and Greek folk music born in Constantinople , whose recording and stage career extended from the late 1920s into the 1970s....
, Stratos Pagioumdzis, Stavros Tzouanakos, and Giannis Tatasopoulos
Giannis Tatasopoulos
Giannis Tatasopoulos was a Greek musician and renowned bouzouki master, soloist, and composer who achieved a number one hit in the national Greek charts in the 1950s and appeared a number of times on Greek national television. In the mid-1950s many of the top bouzouki soloists, including Giannis...
, of whom the latter three died in the United States.
Performers of rebetiko on 78 rpm recordings
This is a fairly comprehensive, but naturally not an exhaustive list, of the musicians and singers who recorded rebetiko songs on 78 rpm discs, up to and including the 1950s. It does not attempt to cover the numbers of present-day musicians involved, whether centrally or peripherally, in the rebetiko revival. The name of each artist is followed by their major instrument(s) as found on recordings, and the main period(s) of their musical activity on records. Unless otherwise indicated, all were primarily and/or initially active in Greece, as far as their recording careers were concerned. Years of birth and death are given when known.Comprehensive list of Greek 78 rpm issues including title, artist(s), composer(s) and genre assignation. The reader who can read Greek will find Greek wiki pages for many of these entries through web searches using the names written in Greek.- Rita AbatziRita AbatziRita Abatzi was a Greek rebetiko musician who began her career in the first part of the 1930s.She was born in Smyrna, Asia Minor, now İzmir, Turkey. A versatile singer of rebetiko, Smyrneika and other music, she was a popular performer on gramophone records in the 1930s...
(Ρίτα Αμπατζή) (1903–1969) singer, prewar - Grigoris AsikisGrigoris AsikisGrigoris Asikis was a Greek singer and songwriter of urban Greek music, Rembetiko. He wrote lyrics for most of the songs he recorded and played the outi .-Personal life:...
(Γρηγόρης Ασικής) (1890–1967) oud, singer, composer, prewar - Yiorgos BatisYiorgos BatisYiorgos Batis was one of the first rebetes influential to rebetiko music. His real name was Yiorgos Tsoros although he was known as Yiorgos Ampatis...
(Γιώργος Μπάτης) (1890–1967) singer, baglamas, composer, prewar - Sotiria BellouSotiria BellouSotiria Bellou was a famous Greek singer and performer of the Greek rebetiko style of music. She was one of the most famous rebetisas of all, mentioned in many music guides, and a contributor to the 1984 British Documentary entitled Music of the Outsiders...
(Σωτηρία Μπέλλου) (1921–1997) singer, guitar, postwar - Grigoris BithikotsisGrigoris BithikotsisGrigoris Bithikotsis was a popular Greek folk singer/songwriter with a career spanning five decades.-Biography:...
(Γρηγόρης Μπιθικώτσης), (1922–2005) singer, composer, postwar - Manolis ChiotisManolis ChiotisManolis Chiotis was a Greek Rebetiko composer, singer and bouzouki player. He was born on March 21, 1920 in Thessaloniki and died in 1970.- See also :* Bouzouki* Rebetes* Rebetiko* Laiko* Greek nightclubs* Greek music...
(Μανώλης Χιώτης) (1921–1970) singer, bouzouki, guitar, composer, pre- and postwar - Loukas DaralasLoukas DaralasLoukas Daralas was born in Athens and is perhaps best known as the father of contemporary singer George Dalaras. He was a performer of Rebetiko music in Greece during the 1950s and early 1960s and is famous for the song "To Vouno" , a well-known rebetiko song...
(Λούκας Νταράλας) (1927–1977) singer, bouzouki, composer, postwar - Roza EskenaziRoza EskenaziRoza Eskenazi was a famous Jewish-Greek singer of rebetiko and Greek folk music born in Constantinople , whose recording and stage career extended from the late 1920s into the 1970s....
(Ρόζα Εσκενάζυ) (c 1895–1980) singer (pre- and postwar) - Mikhalis Genitsaris (Μιχάλης Γενίτσαρης) (1917–2005) singer, bouzouki, composer, pre- and postwar
- Giorgos KatsarosGiorgos KatsarosGiorgos Katsaros is a famous Greek musician and songwriter. He plays the alto saxophone. He has made a variety of recordings, collaborating amongst others with Greek musical composers, such as Yannis Theodoridis and Mimis Plessas.In 1972 he wrote the music for Alekos Sakellarios' I Komissa tis...
(Γιώργος Κατσαρός (θεολογίτης)) (1888–1997) singer, guitar, pre- and postwar, (United States) - Stelios KazantzidisStelios KazantzidisStylianos Kazantzidis was a prominent Greek singer. A leading singer of Greek popular music, or Laïkó, he collaborated with many of Greece's foremost composers.-Biography :...
(Στέλιος Καζαντζίδης)(1931–2001) singer, composer, postwar
- Marika NinouMarika NinouMarika Ninou , was an Armenian-Greek rebetiko singer, born Evangelia Atamian .-Biography:...
(Μαρίκα Νίνου) (1922–1957) singer, postwar
- Marika PapagikaMarika Papagika-Biography:Marika Papagika was a popular Greek singer in the early 20th century and one of the first Greek women singers to be heard on sound recordings....
(Μαρίκα Παπαγκίκα) (1890–1943) singer prewar, (United States) - Ioannis Papaioannou (Γιάννης Παπαϊωάννου) (1914–1972) singer, bouzouki, composer, pre- and postwar
- "Stellakis" PerpiniadisStelios PerpiniadisStelios Perpiniadis , better known as Stellakis , was a Greek folk musician who wrote, sang, and played guitar in the rebetiko style. He was the father of another well-known Greek folk musician, Vangelis Perpiniadis....
(Στελλάκης Περπινιάδης) (1899–1977) singer, pre- and postwar - Nicos Pourpourakis (Nίκος Πουρπουράκης) bouzouki, composer, music director, postwar (United States)
- Kostas RoukounasKostas RoukounasKonstantinos Roukounas was a Greek singer. His repertoire included both "traditional" and "popular" songs . Most notable is his contribution to the subgenre of rebetiko...
(Κώστας Ρούκουνας) (1903–1984) singer, guitar, pre- and postwar - Kostas SkarvelisKostas SkarvelisKostas Skarvelis was a Greek composer of popular music, οf the genre of rembetiko in particular. He also wrote the lyrics for his songs and was an excellent guitar player, having participated in many recordings.-Life:...
(Κώστας Σκαρβέλης) (1880–1942) guitar, composer, prewar - Giannis TatasopoulosGiannis TatasopoulosGiannis Tatasopoulos was a Greek musician and renowned bouzouki master, soloist, and composer who achieved a number one hit in the national Greek charts in the 1950s and appeared a number of times on Greek national television. In the mid-1950s many of the top bouzouki soloists, including Giannis...
(Γιάννης Τατασόπουλος) (1928–2001) bouzouki, composer, posτwar (United States) - Yovan Tsaous (real name: Giannis Eitziridis) (Γιοβάν Τσαούς (Γιάννης Εϊτζιρίδης ή Ετσειρίδης)) (1893–1942) sazi, baglamas, tambouri, composer, prewar
- Vassilis TsitsanisVassilis TsitsanisVassilis Tsitsanis was a Greek songwriter and bouzouki player. He became one of the leading Greek composers of his time and is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern Rebetika. Tsitsanis wrote more than 500 songs and is still remembered as an extraordinary bouzouki...
(Βασίλης Τσιτσάνης) (1915–1984) singer, bouzouki, composer, pre- and postwar - Markos VamvakarisMarkos VamvakarisMarkos Vamvakaris , was a rebetiko musician. He is universally referred to by rebetiko writers and fans simply by his first name, Markos...
(Μάρκος Βαμβακάρης) (1905–1972) singer, bouzouki, composer, pre- and postwar - Nikos VrachnasNikos VrachnasNikos Vrachnas was a rembetiko bouzouki player who in his playing evoked the Piraeus rembetiko style of the 1930s.- Biography :Nikos Vrachnas was born into a poor family in Nikaia Piraeus. There is some uncertainty about his year of birth, which has been given variously as circa 1936, or 1941. He...
(Νίκος Βράχνας) (c 1941–2004) singer, bouzouki, postwar
Discography
Much rebetiko is issued in Greece on CDs which quickly go out of print. Since the 1990s a considerable number of high quality CD productions of historical rebetikoComprehensive list of Greek 78 rpm issues including title, artist(s), composer(s) and genre assignation. have been released by various European and American labels. The following select discography includes some of these historical anthologies, which are likely to be available in English speaking countries, plus a few Greek issues. All are CDs unless otherwise noted. The emphasis on English-language releases in this discography is motivated both by their consistently high sound quality and by their inclusion, in many cases, of copious information in English, which tends to be lacking in Greek issues. See however link section below for one Greek source of historic CDs with website and notes in English.- About Indian Cannabis 1928–1946 The Greek Archives, 2001
- Great Voices of Constantinople 1927–1933, Rounder Records, 1997.
- Greek-Oriental Rebetica-Songs & Dances in the Asia Minor Style:The Golden Years, Arhoolie Records, 1991.
- Marika Papagika – Greek Popular and Rebetic Music in New York 1918–1929, Alma Criolla Records, 1994.
- Markos Vamvakaris, Bouzouki Pioneer, 1932–1940, Rounder Records, 1998.
- Mortika – Rare Vintage Recordings from a Greek Underworld, ARKO records, Uppsala, 2005. CD and book, also issued as 2LP box by Mississippi Records, 2009.
- Mourmourika: Songs of the Greek Underworld, Rounder Records, 1999.
- My Only Consolation: Classic Pireotic Rembetica 1932–1946, Rounder Records, 1999.
- Rembetica: Historic Urban Folk Songs From Greece, Rounder Records, 1992.
- Rembetika: Greek Music from the Underground, JSP Records, 2006.
- Rembetika 2: More of the Secret History of Greece's Underground Music, JSP Records, 2008.
- Rebetiki Istoria, EMIAL-Lambropoulos, Athens 1975–76 – LP series in six volumes, later also issued on cassettes and CDs.
- Roza Eskenazi – Rembetissa, Rounder Records, 1996.
- The Rough Guide to Rebetika, World Music Network, 2004.
- Vassilis Tsitsanis – All the pre-war recordings, 1936–1940 (5CD), JSP Records, 2008.
- Vassilis Tsitsanis – The Postwar Years 1946–1954, (4CD), JSP Records, 2009.
- Women of Rembetica, Rounder Records, 2000.
See also
- MangasMangasManges is the name of a social group in the Belle Époque era's counterculture of Greece . The nearest English equivalent to the term mangas is wide boy, or spiv...
- Rembetiko – a film by Costas Ferris
- Greek music
- Byzantine musicByzantine musicByzantine music is the music of the Byzantine Empire composed to Greek texts as ceremonial, festival, or church music. Greek and foreign historians agree that the ecclesiastical tones and in general the whole system of Byzantine music is closely related to the ancient Greek system...
- Greek dancesGreek dancesGreek dance is a very old tradition, being referred to by authors such as Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch and Lucian. There are different styles and interpretations from all of the islands and surrounding mainland areas. Each region formed its own choreography and style to fit in with their own ways...
- HasapikoHasapikoThe Hasapiko , is a Greek folk dance from Constantinople. The dance originated in the Middle Ages as a battle mime with swords performed by the Greek butchers guild, which adopted it from the military of Byzantine era. In Constantinople during the Byzantine times, it was called in Greek...
- Syrtaki fast version of Hasapiko
External links
- A unique live recording of Markos Vamvakaris
- Se Xrono Rebetiko Kai Laiko (Audio file) A weekly syndicated Greek radio show on Rebetika hosted by Photi Sotiropoulos and written by Vlassis Kokonis
- Rebetiko On-line Offers a brief introduction in Greek and English, and a large photo collection. Listening facility at present disabled (7th Jan 2010)
- Tous aux Balkans: Rebetiko songs lyrics and videos, further useful links
- Original History of Greek rebetico An official introduction in Greek,of Rebetico history
- Rebetiko and folk music wiki (in Greek)
- Listen to an example of Rebeticka from Australia on australianscreen online