(Gk.).
The rebetika are Greek songs associated with an urban low-life milieu frequented by rebetes, or manges, streetwise characters of shady repute, many of whom smoked hashish. The genre occupies a similar place in Greek culture to that of the tango in Argentina or to flamenco in Spain. The origins of the term remain obscure. It first appears as a description of certain Greek popular songs recorded in the USA and Turkey in the early decades of the 20th century. Influenced by the popular music of the late Ottoman Empire the rebetika are considered to have reached their characteristic form after a massive influx of refugees following the exchange of populations at the end of the Turkish-Greek war of 1919–22.
The songs performed in the so-called kafé-amán of Athens from the 1890s to the 1920s were at first indistinguishable from the popular music of Istanbul or Izmir. Instruments used in the ensembles included the outi, santouri, kanonaki and violin. Women singers were as popular as men and included stars like Rosa Eskenazi, Rita Abadzi and Marika Papagika. Among the better known male singers were Panayiotis Toundas, Adonis Dalgas and Kostas Skarvelis.
By the 1930s when commercial recording studios were established in Athens, a new style of music evolved incorporating elements of the Turkish style with Greek popular song. The Bouzouki, its miniature cousin the baglama and the guitar became the most common instruments of the rebetika ensemble. The Piraeus Quartet, who recorded a number of successful songs during the 1930s, were the prototype for such an ensemble. Two members of the quartet, Anestis Delias and Stratos Payoumdzis were from Turkey. Yiorgos Batis was from Piraeus. The fourth member of the group, Markos Vamvakaris became known as the ‘father of rebetika’. The quartet established an earthy, spontaneous style of performance that reflected the tough conditions of the Piraeus underworld and the pleasures of sharing an arghilé (water-pipe) in one of the many hashish dens in the area.
Most rebetika songs were composed in one of three dance rhythms: the zeibekiko, a solo male dance (2 + 2 + 2 + 3); the hasapiko, or ‘butcher’s dance’, in 2/4 or 4/4; and the tsifteteli, or ‘belly dance’, in 2/4 or 4/4.
The imposition of censorship in the late 1930s, the German occupation of Greece during World War II and the Greek civil war of 1947–9 combined to change the character of the rebetika. The musician credited with transforming the rebetika into a more broadly based genre referred to simply as laďko traghoudi (‘popular song’) is Vassilis Tsitsanis. Tsitsanis’s claim to have created a new genre was probably motivated by a desire to survive in the politically turbulent world of post-war Greece and to distance himself from the songs he had composed in the 1930s. The songs written for his partner Marika Ninou and for the legendary singer Sotiria Bellou are still regarded as among the finest of the rebetika repertory.
The late 1950s saw the rise of the so-called arhondorebetes (bouzouki players and singers who became wealthy performing in nightclubs where Athenians paid high prices to dance and smash plates). The rebetika were recognized for their musical potential by the classically trained Greek composers Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadzidakis, both of whom began incorporating elements of the music into their own work during the 1960s. It was not until the 1970s that the original songs were revived and became popular with young audiences. From then on there has been a steady demand for the music, with new groups continuing to emerge and record companies re-issuing many original rebetika songs.
I. Petropoulos: Rebetika tragoudia [Rebetika songs] (Athens, 2/1968)
K. Butterworth and S.Schneider: Rebetika (New York, 1975)
G. Holst: Road to Rembetika (Athens, 1975, rev. 4/1988)
S. Damianakos: I kinoniologia tou rebetikou [A sociology of rebetika] (Athens, 1976)
A.V. Kail, ed.: Markos Vamvakaris: Autobiographia [Markos Vamvakaris: autobiography] (Athens, 1978)
V. Tsitsanis: I zoi mou, to ergo mou [My life, my work], ed. K. Hadzidoulis (Athens, 1979)
S. Gauntlett: ‘“Rebetiko Tragoudi” as a Generic Term’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, viii (1982), 77–102
S. Gauntlett: Rebetika Carmina Graeciae Recentioris: a Contribution to the Definition of the Genre ‘Rebetiko Tragoudi’ (Athens, 1985)
O. Smith: ‘Research on Rebetika: some Methodological Problems and Issues’, Journal of Modern Hellenism, vi (1989), 177–90
G. Holst-Warhaft: ‘Resisting Translation: Slang and Subversion in the Rebetika’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies, viii (1990), 183–96
R. Spottswood: Ethnic Music on Records: a Discography of Ethnic Recordings Produced in the United States 1893 to 1942 (Urbana, IL, 1990)
S. Gauntlett: ‘Orpheus in the Criminal Underworld: Myth in and about Rebetika’, Mantatophoros: deltio neoellinikon, xliii (1991), 7–48
O. Smith: ‘The Chronology of Rebetiko: a Consideration of the Evidence’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, xv (1991), 318–24
D. Maniatis: Vassilis Tsitsanis o ateleiotos [The eternal Vassilis Tsitsanis] (Athens, 1994)
Th. Anastasiou: Paidaki me psychi kai zilemeno [An enviable kid with spirit] (Trikala,1995)
D. Michael: ‘Tsitsanis and the Birth of New “Laiko Tragoudi”’, Modern Greek Studies, iv (1996), 55–96
Marika Ninou: Vassilis Tsitsanis ateleiotos [Marika Ninou: Vassilis Tsitsanis], Philips 6483-004 (1955)
Greatest Greek Singers: the Rebetico of Sotiria Bellou, Lyra/Orata ML 0142 (1966–7)
Oi megalei tou rebetikou tragoudiou: Vassilis Tsitsanis 1937–1952 [The greats of rebetika: Vassilis Tsitsanis 1937–1952], Margo 8150 (1975)
Saranda chronia Tsitsanēs [40 years of Tsitsanis], EMI 71104-105 (1980)
Tsitsanis, HMV 1701751, 1701841 (1987)
Greek Oriental Rebetika: Songs and Dances in the Asia Minor Style, Arhoolie Folklyric CD 7005 (1991) [incl. notes by M. Schwartz]
I Ellada tou Tsitsanē [Tsitsanis’s Greece], 78184–78185 (1992)
Marika Papagika: Greek Popular Song and Rebetic Music in New York 1918–1929, Alma Criolla Records ACCD802 (1994) [incl. notes by D. Soffa]
Afiźroma sto Marko [Offering to Markos], Minos Matsas MSM 148
Bangelis Papazoglou: to Smyrneiko tragoudi stēn Ellada meta to 1922 [Vangelis Papazoglou: the Smyrneic song in Greece after 1922], Falireas Brothers
Istoria tou rebetikou tragoudiou [History of rebetic song], Colombia 70364–70366 and 70378–70380
Vassilis Tsitsanis 1–4, Columbia-Emial 709193–709194 and 70292–70293
Women of the Rebetico Song, FM Records
GAIL HOLST-WARHAFT