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Songs Of The Greek Underworld: The Rebetika Tradition
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Product Description
The Greek edition of this book is entitled Rebetology, thus according this musical and social subculture its rightful place in the academic study of Greek culture. Written as a broad-brush introduction to rebetika song, this concise and well-argued book details the everyday life of the rebetes who they were, where they came from, how they dressed, their weapons and styles of fighting, their sexual preferences, their culture of hashish and of prison life, all of which form the substance of their songs.
Petropoulos flies in the face of traditional Greek academia with his painstaking explanation of how this apparently most Greek of musical cultures has thoroughly cosmopolitan roots; Turkish, Albanian, gypsy and Jewish. By tracing the figure of the rebetis back to the Ottoman empire, he shows how the language and music of rebetika song were imbued with Turkish influences, and how its ethos was one of free love, criminal behaviours and a challenge to established social norms.
Songs of the Greek Underworld is not only a learned and erudite text, accompanied by breakdowns of the rhythms and metric patterns of the different musics and their associated dances, but a salutary reminder of the shared cultural roots of Turkey and Greece. The book includes the text of songs from the tradition, and over ten line drawings by A. Kanavakis and 34 photographs.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #1212724 in Books
- Published on: 2000-06-01
- Original language: Greek
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 160 pages
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Customer Reviews
Not the Best First, but the Essential Second book on Rebetika
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 ininterrogated. 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.
Quick, fun, informative read
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.
