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Thread: Greek strings

  1. #1
    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Greek strings

    I don't know much about this video except that it was recommended for me on You Tube. I'm not sure why, but they were right. There's some great string music and singing. Perhaps someone who speaks Greek or plays Greek music can enlighten us further.

    If the links don't work, enter "Μουσική βραδιά - Ευτυχία Παπαγιαννοπούλου" into YouTube.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ICa6q7i0sc




    Google Translation of the notes (which makes everything clear as mud):

    Music night - Happiness Papayannopoulou

    First broadcast for 1977, a tribute to Happiness Papayannopoulou. It would be the first time she was honored by television, and since she was no longer living, I reached out to Katie Polizogopoulou's daughter for information and material. She showed me Happiness interviews in many magazines and a list of songs she considered her own, a list that had never been denied as long as she lived.

    I chose the songs I wanted - among them Tsitsani's four - and invited Sotiria Bellou, Mary Linda and Katie Gray to say and talk about their acquaintance and collaboration with Happiness. Two songs by Kazantzidis, I was destined for Marinella, but because she didn't get on the phone, I went to Harry Alexiou. "George, it's something we all owe to Happiness," Haroula told me, without hesitation. "Only I would like to I say "Two doors have life" and "Manula I'll leave". "These songs I thought of myself too," I replied. And indeed, Haroula sang these two songs beautifully. The show also featured Apostolos Kaldaras - one of the first to put Papayannopoulou's name on the record - as well as the company "Blue Windows", which I christened "Rebetiki Company".

    When I phoned Sotiria Bellou and asked her to say "I'm wingsless", her answer was "Whatever you want, my George!" But when he came to the studio, he didn't want to say it in any way. The production manager, Katerina Katotakis, was coming to my office every so desperately and she was saying 'She accepts nothing'. "Katerina, she'll say it!" I replied and sent her back to the studio. To many, Salvation said it. And shockingly, as I had imagined.

    On the day that the show was going to air, I appeared on Eleni Mavili's "Every Noon" presented by Michalis Roussos, to advertise it. Coming out of the studio, I was told that Tsitsanis had just asked me to. I called him on the phone and I heard him angry, accusing Happiness of lying and not knowing how to write lyrics, so the show shouldn't have been played. "The show is ready and it will be played" I told him, "but if you want, come on tomorrow at 'Noon' to say what you support. " He did not come. But after a few days, an interview was published in the "New" newspaper with George Lianis, where, after completely discrediting the lyricist, he accused Elias Petropoulos, the telecast Maria Papadopoulou - who was Nikos Routsos' nephew - and me, as "dark". who fought him. I told her not to worry, and the newspaper responded to the grandson of Eftychia Papayannopoulou, lawyer Alexis Polizogopoulos.
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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  3. #2
    Slow your roll. greg_tsam's Avatar
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    Default Re: Greek strings

    Rebetiko Music - "Greek Blues"

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebetiko

    My father immigrated to the USA from Sparta, Greece. He loved this music and it's all he listened to. Still does- he's 92 and still going strong. I'm 49 and grew up surrounded by it and it's still very popular. Can you imagine going to a show and a thousand Greeks, of all ages, are dancing and singing along? It's really something to experience.

    Eftychia "Happiness Papayannopoulou was one of the first women of Rebetiki.

    https://www.ellines.com/en/myths/475...aiko-tragoudi/

    Stelios Kazantzidis is mentioned and was one of my Dad's favorites. Many consider him the voice of his era but there were others. Check him out for some more good tunes.

    https://greece.greekreporter.com/201...ricken-greece/

    When I started playing the mandolin some of the bluegrass old guard huffed that I played mandolin like a Greek bouzouki. Although it was meant as an insult, I was flattered. Those bouzouki players are amazing.

    Here's a movie on it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20NGp1fYfls
    Breedlove Quartz FF with K&K Twin - Weber Big Horn - Fender FM62SCE
    Wall Hangers - 1970's Stella A and 60's Kay Kraft

    Whether you slow your roll or mash on it, enjoy the ride.

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  5. #3
    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: Greek strings

    Quote Originally Posted by greg_tsam View Post
    Rebetiko Music - "Greek Blues"

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebetiko

    My father immigrated to the USA from Sparta, Greece. He loved this music and it's all he listened to. Still does- he's 92 and still going strong. I'm 49 and grew up surrounded by it and it's still very popular. Can you imagine going to a show and a thousand Greeks, of all ages, are dancing and singing along? It's really something to experience.

    Eftychia "Happiness Papayannopoulou was one of the first women of Rebetiki.

    https://www.ellines.com/en/myths/475...aiko-tragoudi/

    Stelios Kazantzidis is mentioned and was one of my Dad's favorites. Many consider him the voice of his era but there were others. Check him out for some more good tunes.

    https://greece.greekreporter.com/201...ricken-greece/

    When I started playing the mandolin some of the bluegrass old guard huffed that I played mandolin like a Greek bouzouki. Although it was meant as an insult, I was flattered. Those bouzouki players are amazing.

    Here's a movie on it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20NGp1fYfls
    Thanks, Greg. I always like getting more musical and cultural education, and I enjoyed the music, especially all those cousins-of-mandolins played by masterful musicians. I grew up partly in multicultural Windsor, Ontario, and went to school in the 1960's with many eastern Europeans (not so much Greeks, as Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians, Romanians, Russians, and people from the former Yugoslavia). I hung around with a group of Serbo-Canadians, and gained a love of their music. I then lived near the Greek section of "The Danforth" in Toronto in the 1970's when the restaurants had open kitchens and cooks who didn't speak English, so that we chose our delicious meals by pointing at them, with perhaps a little help from bilingual waitresses, all immigrants themselves, and the only Greek women in these restaurants. However, there was no hostility to women from outside the Greek community being in these places. My friends and I were among the few hippies and other adventurous souls who wandered into these places. I suspect that at least some of the music I was listening to in these places was Rebetiko. Sadly, the district is now the gentrified and expensive "Greektown." Through these experiences, I devloped an affinity for music from Greece and the Balkans, and appreciate the time you took to educate me about Rebetiko music.
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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  7. #4
    Slow your roll. greg_tsam's Avatar
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    Default Re: Greek strings

    You're welcome. It's always nice to share this part of my heritage.
    Breedlove Quartz FF with K&K Twin - Weber Big Horn - Fender FM62SCE
    Wall Hangers - 1970's Stella A and 60's Kay Kraft

    Whether you slow your roll or mash on it, enjoy the ride.

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    Ranald 

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