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Rebetiko, plural rebetika, (Greek ρεμπέτικο and ρεμπέτικα respectively), occasionally transliterated as Rembetiko, is the name for a type of Greek urban folk music. A roots music form of sorts, the sound of the genre reflects the combined influences of European and Middle Eastern music. Rebetiko music has sometimes been called the Greek blues, since like the blues, it grew out of a specific urban subculture and reflected the harsh realities of an oppressed subculture's lifestyle: poverty, alienation, crime, drink, drugs prostitution, and violence. But rebetiko's subject matter also extends to other subjects: romance and passion, social matters, people such as the mother, death, the difficulties of living in a foreign country, army life, war, trivial matters of everyday life, exotic places, poverty, labor, illnesses, and the minor sorrows of people. Also like the blues, rebetiko progressed from being a music associated with the lower classes to becoming during the 1960s and later a revived musical form of wide popularity, especially among younger people. Rebetiko music was closely associated with the mangas Greek urban subculture. Finally, rebetiko songs usually display the same chord progressions found in songs from classic Mississippi delta bluesmen like Robert Johnson and others[citation needed]. All the rebetiko songs are based on traditional Greek or Anatolian dance rhythms, zeibekikos, aptalikos, chasapikos and servikos being very common but they also include tsifteteli, karsilamas, syrtos and other dance styles.
HistorySee also: Timeline of Rebetika Elias Petropoulos, one of the principal historians of the rebetiko, divides the history of the style into three periods:
The roots of rebetiko music may be found in the music of the bigger Greek cities, most of them coastal, in today's Greece and Asia Minor. The cradles of rebetiko's precursor music were the taverna, the ouzeri, the hashish den, and the prison. Rebetiko music properly speaking developed in the communities of Greek refugees from Asia Minor in the wake of the population exchange of 1923. These refugees settled primarily in Athens, Piraeus, and Thessaloniki. By combining the Anatolian musical modes they had been familiar with in Asia Minor with the native musical traditions they found in Greece proper, they created a type of music which reflected their dispossessed condition and their response to it .[1] Gradually rebetiko music acquired its own character. In 1932, the first recordings with bouzouki were made by Markos Vamvakaris. In 1936, the 4th of August Regime under Ioannis Metaxas was established and with it, the onset of censorship due to the disreputable subject matter of many early rebetiko songs. (Damianakos Stathis has argued that the rebetiko songs of this first period were mostly the musical expression of lumpenproletariat.) Consequently, the song lyrics were sanitized and the references to drugs and other criminal or disreputable activities vanished from the recordings. Yet the recording of illicit themes continued, because during that period a great number of Greeks emigrated to the United States, and the emigrants took the rebetiko tradition with them. Many noteworthy songs were recorded in America by rebetiko performers such as Spyros Peristeris, Panagiotis Tountas, Ioannis Papaioannou, Vassilis Tsitsanis, Manolis Hiotis, Stratos Pagioumtzis and Roza Eskenazi, to name a few. On the other hand, other rembetika songs, even ones describing criminal activity, became quite popular among the general population. One example is the song, "Varka sto Yialo," meaning "Boat on the Beach," which has a catchy chorus and is still popular and has gained general acceptance. While it is common to hear this song on the radio and in nightclubs, this song actually describes the shipment of drugs, via a boat, at night, from the Middle East. During the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II (1941-1944), no rebetiko recordings were made. A leading personality in postwar rebetiko music was Vassilis Tsitsanis. After censorship's end, rebetiko became widely accepted. New singers such as Sotiria Bellou made their appearance. During the 1950s, however, rebetico music was generally eclipsed by other, more conventional types of popular music. The "first revival" period began in the 1960s, when older hits began being recorded once more. During the same period, writers such as Elias Petropoulos and Ntinos Christianopoulos published the biographies of famous rebetiko singers. Meanwhile, research on rebetiko began and anthologies and new recordings their appearance. The bouzouki, the basic musical instrument of rebetiko music, becomes widely accepted and is used by great composers such as Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis. Rebetiko songs are popular even today, and this musical genre is still a subject of international research and popularity. Rebetiko in the USAIn the years following the Asia Minor Disaster and even before that, a great number of Greeks emigrated to the USA, bringing their Greek musical tradition with them. Since the beginning of the 19th century, American companies had recorded Greek music performed by these immigrants. The first American Greek recording enterprises made their appearance in 1919, and from the mid 20's there exist a number of recordings that can be classified as rebetiko, even before the beginning of the rebetiko recordings in Greece. Recording studios in the USA played an important role in preserving and recording rembetiko music made otherwise illegal in Greece, once in the 30's when the Metaxas dictatorship outlawed rembetiko music, and again in the 60's when it was illegal under the military dictatorship of Papadopoulos. The reason these authoritarian dictatorships suppressed the public broadcast of rembetika music can be found in the common themes of the songs discussed earlier in this article. A notable example of an American recording studios preserving the more bold expressions of some these rebetiko songs is the record album, now found in CD format, "Otan Kapnizie O Loulas" ---- translated as "when the hookah smokes." This album was recorded at the United States by Apostolos Nicolaidis, and could not be recorded in Greece because the songs all contain strong and overt references of smoking hashish and of the experience of being under the influence of these and other drugs. Instruments The basic instruments of the rebetiko song are the bouzouki and the guitar. Additional instruments used include the baglamas, tambourine, violin, accordion, finger-cymbals (comparable to castanets). In some older recordings, something like clattering glass may be heard. This sound is produced by the striking of worry beads against a drinking glass. Some manges are in the habit of making this sound in their music using that method, a practice which was passed on and occurs in some modern recordings. ThemesFamous performers
Video Examplehttp://www.youtube.com/v/rAMNRp3DAsA See also
Further reading
DiscographyMuch rebetiko is on recordings issued in Greece which quickly go out of print. The following select discography includes overview anthologies which are likely to be available in English speaking countries, plus a few Greek issues which may be hard to find but are included because of their special importance. All are CDs unless otherwise noted.
Notes
External links
Rebetiko
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