The R E M B E T I K A,
songs that were sung in the poor quarters of Smyrna, Istanbul and the
ports of Greece in the late nineteenth century, and became the
popular bouzouki music of the 1930s to 1950s, have many parallels
with American blues. Like the blues, the rembetika were the music of
outsiders, who developed their own slang and their own forms of
expression. Road
to Rembetika was
the first book in English to attempt a general survey of the world of
the rembetes who
smoked hashish and danced the passionate, introspective zembekiko to
release their emotions. An enthusiastic introduction to the subject,
it was written by an Australian musician and writer who first came to
Greece in 1965 and who has continued to perform and write about Greek
music ever since. Gail Holst describes her own initiation into the
rembetika, outlines its historical and sociological background, its
musical characteristics and instrumentation.
The
second part of the book is a collection of rembetika songs translated
into English. The text is illustrated with photographs of the period,
musical examples and some original manuscripts of the songs.
This
fourth edition has been retypeset and amended, and has a new
introduction and further song lyrics, and the bibliography and
discography have been updated.
There
is a CD as well, that you can find HERE
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-Various
Artists: M o r t i k a- Rare Vintage Recordings From A Greek
Underworld.
-Great
Greek/Minor Asia compilation of rebetiko songs.
A very
nice collection of Greek sub-culture songs, mainly made for anyone
who is not from Greece. Every song and its lyrics, is translated to
English. Containes information on the recording, many pictures and
the main instruments that participated, as well as many photos
of that era.
It
is important to mention about ARKO Records, which is responsible for
the remastering and the research done. Charles
Howard who compiled the songs and lives in greece and Ted Kendall who
made the remastering taking the best available 78s vinyl copies.
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