Greek songs with American influences, recorded and released in 78 rpm records in USA. Recordings 1922 - 1952 Greek music was strongly influenced by the Greek immigrant's exposure to American culture during the twentie...
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Greek songs with American influences, recorded and released in 78 rpm records in USA. Recordings 1922 - 1952
Greek music was strongly influenced by the Greek immigrant's exposure to American culture during the twentieth century. Music, being an integral part of both Greek and American cultures, became a vehicle for transplanted Greeks to remember their native country as they absorbed aspects of American life. While the desire to maintain the Greek culture and language was inherent in the immigrant communities, the challenge of adjusting to American life was overwhelming. The result of this emotional struggle was the development of a unique culture known as Greek-American.
One element of this evolution was the alteration of the Greek language by the adoption of English words creating a new vocabulary. Gringlish is the word best able to describe the fusion of English words and Greek linguistic format. Although the f the songs in this album were for the most part purely Greek in text and orchestration, the subject matter and Gringlish injections could only be appreciated by the Greeks in America.
Some examples :
The introduction begins with the 1932 New York recording produced by Tetos Demetriades. Tzanetos' monologue is a clever satire of the Greek programs on American radio, and sponsors of that era. His humorous approach to the adoption of English words by Greek immigrants made this piece an ideal introduction of the Gringlish vocabulary used in this record. In the opinion of Dinos Pappas, a collector of original Greek audio recordings, Tzanetos' persona is Tetos Demetriades himself.
As a perfect example of Gringlish, the song “Giati gliko mou sweetheart” uses Greek, English and the mixture of both languages to invent such words as "straki" meaning strike. The lovelorn singer laments over a woman who apparently does not reciprocate his amorous sentiments as he tries to convince himself that he "don't care” when she goes on strike and rejects his advances, insisting that he is “bizy” (busy).
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