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Songs Of The Greek Underworld: The Rebetika Tradition

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There are only two books in English on Greek Rebetika music: this one and Road to Rembetika by Gail Holst. If you are good-fortuned enough to come upon a zeal for this music, you should buy Holst's book first, and this one next. But in whatever order, you must have them both.

Both books share the same goal, to initiate the beginner into the smoky origins of Rebetika, often called Greece's Blues. This is no easy feat. The history of Greece's music in the early 20th century is as complex as its political and social history, and closely connected to both.

Rebetika was first sung in the mouths of poor people, criminals, hash-smokers, gangsters. It got some of them rich, but served only (only?) as consolation to many more. And thanks to the universal values of the music that gave some wealth and many hope, an abundance of early recordings were made and kept, as well as photographs, and oral histories. These artifacts preserve the sounds and sights of a vast cast of characters. Without guidance, few would want to tackle this great bulk of information.

The miracle of these books is that they distill so much material into very readable, very concise forms. Holst's book is the easiest to approach. But it lacks some of the more intricate cultural details. Petropoulos' book supplements these deficiencies. In Songs of the Greek Underworld, you will find more information than you will want at first. Petropoulos has mastered his subject, and spares nothing for the reader.

Here you will find a history of the Athens underworld in the first quarter of the 20th century, complete with mini-biographies of some of its most notorious players. Illustrations accompany descriptions of the basic types of gang members, their hierarchies, their customs. And in the survey of Athens' underbelly, no alley is left unscrutinized, no myth left uninterrogated. And because the author himself was to some extent a late member of this culture, conversant with some of the same men he talks about, you can be sure his sources are as reliable as possible.

Also a skilled slang-linguist, Petropoulos lavishes linguistic detail on his narrative. A diligent reader will find in this book a veritable dictionary of Athens' old underworld dialect. These details, even for readers who have no Greek, add life to the history.

To summarize, Petropoulos approaches his topic with the care and attention of an academic, but with the deep invested interest of an autobiographer. This book also has the distinction of being the only work from Petropoulos' vast catalogue yet to be translated into English. As the reader of this book will soon find, this really is a shame. I'm sure I'm not the first to hope, after scanning the tantalizing titles in this book's bibliography, that someday a skilled translator will devote due attention to the rest of Petropoulos' work.

The other review of this book offers great detail.

I'll add that this is a fun book to read.

My uncle, George Giordas, is considered one of the best Greek musicians of the 1960-1980s to perform Greek music on the East coast of the USA. I learned bouzoukee from listening to him and the many recordings that were available to me. I also performed in a national tour of the Broadway show "Zorba." I found it interesting and surprising to learn the extent to which rebetika developed in the USA.

For me, this book provided colorful details of rebetika culture and lifestyle. My grandmother (born in Lesbos)used many of the words mentioned in the text. Her husband, my grandfather, was born and raised in Syros (one of the hot beds of rebetika). My father had many recordings from the 1940s & 50s and used to sing along to recordings of Tsitsanis, among others. So I had a good laugh while reading many of the passages. Also, the footnotes provided many valuable details.

I'm looking forward to the translation of Petropoulos's other texts by Ed Emory (who translated this book). If you're a Greek or Grecophile, interested in the subversive aspects of Greek culture, you'll love this book.

Elias Petropoulos (1928-2003) was the last great philosopher, anarchist, true scholar, talented writer, poet of the gutter (Francois Villon incarnate), who had larger than life personality boasting with naive healthy humour of ancient Greeks and Francois Rabelais.His thurst for knowledge didn't want to know any boundaries and respect false morals of hypocrite society - single-handed he produced more works than a respectable university packed with dull mothballed professors - "Holy Hashish", "The History of Condom", "The Manual of the Good Thief", "The Brothel", "On Prison", "The Book of the Lice" , first rebetika glossary, dictionary of street slang, Turkish-Greek dictionary ... More than 1.000 articles on all possible and impossible subjects.
Elias Petropoulos spent most of his life in exile in France.
The first vesion of this book, "Rembetika tragoudiya" ("Rebetika songs") was written and published while still in Greece, in 1968, and was critically acclaimed - Petropoulos was awarded with 5 months imprisonment for "Rebetika". All in all, he was sentenced to prison 3 times for his works, and it is impossible to count penalties etc. It was followed by "Rembetologiya" ("Rebetology"), which was first published as an article. Ed Emory did an excellent translation of the book (the best ever written and available in English - forget dull and shallow Gail Holst), provided knowledgeable introduction and extensive bibliography and discography. Pen and ink drawings of Kanavakis didn't make it into any Greek Sale of Sotheby's or Bonham's, but they have more character than any "naive connerie" sold there.
Rebetika (or rembetiko, rembetika) was born in Asia Minor and Mediterranean in the last century (or even before) and eagerly accepted instruments unknown in Europe - bouzouki, santouri, ud - together with the rhythms and harmonies of that area, as well as Egypt, Maghreb, Albania and Serbia. After the catastrophe of 1922 millions of ethnic Greeks were forced into exile in Greece, which as an agrarian economy has no place for them. The refugees had to settle in unhuman conditions of slums and ghettos, the underwold was born, and unique phenomenon - rebetika - started to blossom. Music of social outcasts and for social pariahs - manges (spivs), zembekes (porters, often of Albanian origin), prostitutes, pimps, thieves... Composed and performed when smoking hashish. Tough, naive, often cruel and full of emotions - the lament of tortured sould and bleeding heart. Rebetika turned out to be very flexible, readily adopting new musical forms - tango, romance, waltz, and new instruments - accordeon, violin, clarinet, and crossing the continents - from Australia to USA, and to the shores of Russian Black Sea ( many traditional Russian underworld songs - "blatnoi" - are in fact rebetika melodies, only using guitar instead of bouzouki).
Rebetika reached its peak between the two wars, when thousands of records were produced (mainly in the USA), and some musicians suddenly went from gutter to stardom - not unlike black jazz musicians.
It might be quite unusual for someone unprepared and untrained, but if you can feel the hypnotising energy, you might get addicted to it. So, if you are willing to step further on this dangerous ground, don't miss award-winning film by Costas Ferris - Rembetiko: Special Edition, and excellent 8 DVDs documentary (also by him) - as shown on the image. Ferris later travelled all over the world with his show (live performance is recorded on 4 CDs "Cafe Aman"). This 4 CDs box set remains the best compilation ever made - Rembetika: Greek Music From the Underworld.
Personal advice (arguable, of course): when it comes to the discography in the book, don't waste your time on Dalaras - he is an excellent singer, but his cold professional performance has no feelings for rebetika. Also: haris Alexiou is just great, but not a must in this case - try Glykeria instead (Glykeria and the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra). My personal favourite is "Zembekiko" of Savvopoulos singing with Sotiria Bellou.