'Rebetika began on the margins of society - specifically in illegal but more or less tolerated hashish cafes - in the ports of Piraeus & Thessaloniki in the mid 1920s, as migrants, seamen and traders from the east [in particular from Turkey & Lebanon] brought their customs with them. This of course coincided with the War in Asia Minor, which displaced millions of individuals from Constantinople & Smyrna, including some of the finest musicians, effectively forcing many of them underground & into the hash dens of Greece. Fortunately, many recorded stellar 78 rpm shellac sides as well.
The songs featured here were made by and for the manges, men & women who scorned straight society & its laws and conventions. A manga never wore a collar or tie, hated the police, smoked dope constantly, & avoided legitimate work whenever possible.
Like its latin cousins [fado & flamenco], rebetika is the blues in another form: musique for the oppressed, the outlaw & the bohemian. It's visceral, rough-edged, percussive, & rhythmically off-kilter; it possesses great melodic variety & charm, & amidst all the passion and pain, it's capable of tenderness too. Accompanying instruments are typically the bouzouki, the lauto and the tsuras, double string lutes of different sizes and sonorities, & the sanduri, a close relation of the north Indian santoor. The themes are central to the chief recreational pursuits of the manges, which were drugs, musique & women, as well as their associated trappings like prison, petty criminality & early death.' ;D
320 χάρη σε κάποια γλυκιά ψυχή, indispensible booklet included :)
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