Rebetika and popular Greek songs of making believe
Authentic 78 rpm recordings 1932 - 1957

Singing is a singular means of entertainment and expression, a creative force that is directly accessible by the poorer sectors of society. Musicologists agree that the earliest songs were created in the outdoors as a way of synchronising group labour and later evolved as accompaniments to events such as weddings, fetes and celebrations of local or national heroes, and also to express love.
As societies changed and the economic conditions that led entire social groups into poverty began to emerge, the subject-matter of songs also changed focus and new elements were introduced into the art. Thus, for example, the shanty towns of America produced rhythm ‘n’ blues. In Cuba, the son was born, in Portugal it was the fado, in Argentina the tango and in Piraeus it was the rebetiko.
The evolutionary course of all of these genres is pretty much the same. At first they were received by musical and social establishments as being songs of the underworld and unworthy of being viewed as art. They also shared common themes. Love, death, poverty, distress and everyday troubles were the dominant themes of the lyrics, accompanied by a general disdain for all manner of authority. The bohemian lifestyle of the songs’ protagonists, contempt for money and all material possessions, and the tragic end that inevitably befalls those on the fringes of society are also common motifs.

The origins of rebetiko

Rebetiko songs began to emerge in areas that experienced the first large concentrations of urban populations, such as Smyrna, Constantinople and Thessaloniki. That was where, as far back as the mid-19th century, this Greek genre that catered to the needs of the newly introduced populations, the urban song, was heard.
Rebetiko, in its earliest manifestations, arose from the first generation of internal migrants moving from the countryside to the city. The characteristic sound that differentiates it from typical popular, or demotic, music is the multifaceted nature of the social groups it lent expression to, in contrast to demotic music which came from close-knit agricultural societies and which could be defined by local idioms, common ethnic roots, etc. If, for example, we were to study the social evolution of Smyrna, we would observe that other than the native populations, whose origins are lost in the centuries, the city also had large numbers of settlers from the broader Greek-speaking region. The same goes for Constantinople, or present-day Istanbul. Furthermore the presence of minority populations of Muslims, as well as minorities from Armenia, Jews and merchants, diplomats and military personnel from the West was more acutely felt in Smyrna. Together they composed a diverse minority group. Within this great melting-pot, all the different forms of cultural expression were given room to grow. Thus the musicians of the Greek majority were called upon to represent this multicultural mosaic of different ethnicities.
Expressing just this cultural variety is what gave birth to the first urban songs which, naturally, belonged to many different categories as they were first and foremost influenced by local traditions and then by a broader cultural spectrum which begins in the European-style music of the Ionian Islands and spans all the way to the music of the Near East.
The years between 1850 and 1922 can be defined as a period of coexistence, co-evolution and communication between the genres, during which the younger of the two – rebetiko – emerged from the older styles. However, its final form arose from a series of influences related to specific features and factors that came from the Greek territories.
Rebetiko was deeply influenced by the music of the church, which The songs of Smyrna and Constantinople – considered the first points of origin of a Greek urban culture in modern history (along with the Ionian Islands, which developed in parallel but also in the opposite direction) – travelled to the free Greek world via the first groups of musicians to tour the territories in the second half of the 19th century. These songs arrived in all the major provincial cities and, of course, to Athens and Piraeus. A plethora of music cafes (kafodeia, santour or café-aman) were created around this new musical genre that had flooded Greek urban centres and was embraced by the broad working-class, among others, despite the outcry from European-minded intellectuals who feared the return of a Turkish cultural occupation.
The 1922 Asia Minor disaster and the ensuing Treaty of Lausanne was followed by extensive population exchanges between Greece and Turkey. Thousands of Greeks from Asia Minor moved to Greek cities, bringing with them their musical traditions.
“Rebetiko, therefore, was established by immigration. From that point on all it needed was to be cleansed from within: foreign elements had to go, the subject-matter needed to be adapted to more popular themes, vulgarities had to be got rid of and the disparate voices had to merged in such a way so that rebetiko could spread out even further.” (Historical and aesthetic development of rebetiko, by Dinos Christianopoulos, Diagonios, 1961, Issue 1).

Rebetiko’s jump from the confines of prison to the open horizons of the cafes and nightclubs of migrants’ quarters in big cities marked its first qualitative leap. From songs of the underground, rebetiko was now poised to conquer the proletarian masses of the migrants’ quarters, whose residents formed an important part of the core that would contribute to the shifts in the tight-knit merchant/land-owner character of the Greek economy. The change in the quality of the music was not immediately felt. It was in fact a slow and tortured process, experiencing the same slow and tortured pace of the economy in Greece’s biggest urban centres.

The subject-matter of rebetiko is much the same as all other genres of music, such as love, but it is also about bravado. At first the dominant themes were love and drugs – prison – lawlessness. Gradually as rebetiko became more popular with the masses, the songs with more provocative themes became sidelined and more subjects related to society at large began to emerge, with love, naturally, always holding the top spot.
Rebetiko songs have been written about love, drugs (cocaine, etc.) and drug dens, prisons, family relations (such as mothers), death, leaving the homeland, politics (satires), the military and war, the “small” things of everyday life, exotic places, poverty, particular people, work, illness, prostitution, the sadness and small laments of life, etc.

Songs continued to be written during the wartime occupation but were not recorded as the studios were closed until 1946. Most of the old exponents of rebetiko (the rebetes) however, were left behind. During the occupation, many of Smyrna songwriters, such as Panayiotis Toundas, had died but others of the Piraeus school who were still alive were having difficulty making a living. Markos Vamvakaris wrote in his autobiography that he used to “run about to the islands and festivals”.

Rebetiko broke out of its narrow boundaries after liberation. The troubles suffered by the progressive movement had serious effects on the development of songwriting as it was not possible, because of the persecution of the Left, to give immediate expression to the passions and longings of the broader masses. Therefore at first there were rebetiko songs that spoke of love, in some cases with a social undercurrent. It was then that worthy songwriters appeared such as Tsitsanis, Papaioannou, Mitsakis who, with the older Vamvakaris, comprised the rebetiko “quartet”.
During the 1940s Sotiria Bellou appeared on the scene, and in the 1950s two very important new singers – Stelios Kazantzidis and Grigoris Bithikotsis.

Rebetiko was becoming accepted by wider sections of the population, and that also broadened its themes and the places where it was heard.
After the end of the war, rebetiko became more popular with the masses and therefore a respectable form of entertainment. Nightclubs of that period, such as Tzitzifies, Fat Jimmy’s, the Rossignol and the Triana had large bands of musicians and singers, many of whom had become famous before the war and others that became well-known such as Chiotis, Tsousakis, Bellou, Marika Nikolaidou (known as Marika Ninou) who later became famous as Tsitsanis’ lead singer, first appearing with him at Fat Jimmy’s and who had several hits until 1953 when she left for America.

Markos Vamvakaris, Papaioannou and Stratos continued to play the old rebetiko they had created before the war, but fashions had changed and so Stratos and Papaioannou had to adapt to the new conditions. Stratos recorded several of Tsitsanis’ songs; Papaioannou, who was made for the stage, attracted new audiences with his special charm and humour. Like Tsitsanis, he had discovered the amazing vocal quality of Sotiria Bellou and after a short while used her on recordings of some of his best post-war songs.

The most well known performers of the period went from one club to another and on tours of the provinces. Recordings of rebetiko/popular songs were now circulating widely and as the country began to emerge from the catastrophic years of civil war, bouzouki clubs became more popular, more expensive and up-market.
Several musicians and musicologists began to show an interest in rebetiko, particularly Manos Hatzidakis whose treatment of the genre left its mark on the entire development of light Greek music.

If it had not been for Tsitsanis, it is doubtful whether rebetiko would have regained its pre-war popularity. Even Papaioannou was drawing smaller crowds than before, and Vamvakaris was no longer in fashion. Tsitsanis managed to take rebetiko further, beyond the bounds of its class and geographical boundaries into the open arena of music for popular consumption. His songs were still in the rebetiko style, but the lyrics were generally more romantic and with less social commentary than the pre-war songs. Famous singers of the period, particularly Sotiria Bellou and Prodromos Tsaousakis gave new dimensions to the songs and the fuller orchestration often made them more appealing.
The 1950s saw a general rise in the country’s living standards. The new rebetiko still had the same external characteristics of those in the previous decade but retained very few of the spontaneous elements or the essential character of the early period. The manghes really didn’t exist any more, as one song claimed, and the themes of the songs referred to them with nostalgia and feeling, more as an appeal to their world which had become a kind of myth or legend for the modern world.

The big jazz orchestras in America were making a considerable impression and affecting the composition of the rebetiko groups as well as the décor of the nightclubs, restaurants and tavernas. At the time when Tsitsanis and Marika Ninou were in their heyday at Fat Jimmy’s and other tavernas, Manolis Chiotis made his appearance on the scene.

In the mid-1950s the “noble rebetes” (archontorebetes) appeared, musicians and composers who really got rich. They were usually musicians with impressive skills and the ability to exploit them in front of the public. Chiotis was the first and perhaps the most unsurpassed virtuoso of the bouzouki. He had begun playing before the war, but only managed to become popular after 1950, particularly when he added a fourth string to his bouzouki and changed the tuning so as to be able to play faster with improved harmonics

The electric bouzouki completed the transformation. Chiotis was accompanied by that amazing interpreter of his songs, Mary Linda. His songs were now called “archondorebetiko”; there were now eight or 10 bouzoukis in the orchestra, accompanied by the electric Hammond organ and drums which often changed the essence of the music. Despite the nouveau riche atmosphere of the times, many excellent songs were written.

The subject matter of the songs mostly concerned entertainment, the taverna, wine and love. The old rebetiko musicians who wanted no part of the new climate or who had not managed to adapt to it, kept on working at the few clubs that had retained the old style but did not have many customers. They barely managed to make a living.

Juke-boxes and record players at the tavernas in working class neighbourhoods replaced the musicians and groups. People now went to these places mainly to eat and drink and only secondarily to hear the music, which did not have the immediacy of live performances.
Throughout society a change of values was occurring under the direct influence of the West, pressure from Western-oriented governments and the changing standard of living, along with an increasing pressure towards industrial development (which never eventuated) and a consumer society.