1950's and 1960's Greek Music Videos

 Hopefully it is temporary, but prolific poster Yianni Jovanni's YouTube videos have all recently disappeared.  I've been going back through the blog, trying to find other sources for various videos from his wonderful collection.  Mostly I've been successful, but it looks like a few videos have absolutely disappeared; definitely a loss for humankind. In the course of this search I ran across this compilation of clips of Mary Linda dancing while Manolis Chiotis does his thing.  Some of these videos have already appeared in this blog, others are in my reserve pile, but all are charming Enjoy!

There are deep things going on in this video, things that my shallow, non-Greek, lobes cannot wrap themselves around.  If you like your videos flush with inscrutable subtexts and deep symbolism of the huh? WTF? and did-I-see-that-and-what-could-it-have-meant? variety, this is your lucky day.   Like some of the best of these videos, this one starts out with a shot of feet.  Not dancing  feet,  but booted feet walking past a dog, after which the action comes so fast that any sort of a narrative would be too long for a blog post.  Nevertheless, keep an eye out for. Military officers (Cossacks according to one commentator) A singer with a prominent cross The lead officer quickly becoming enraptured by the singer Well dressed, clean cut bouzouki players Affectional gestures from the singer to a cigarette smoker The singer pouring alcohol for a dude with a mustache and another cigarette Two longhairs with leather jackets having an interaction that involves a pitcher Lots of defiant clapping

PG material here -- While there is no overt PDA in this one, there is some major chemistry happening! Just to clarify things at the start.  The singer is Voula Zoumboulakis who plays a singer named Eleni, and the dude in the dark suit is Paris Alexander who plays the American tomato-juice salesman, John Johnson.   The tune (and video) begins with a minor key duet between the guitar and a RMFRD&BD* sanctioned three course bouzouki.  Then, in rapid succession, Mr. Johnson (in the dark jacket) is seated, the band finds its groove, we see some spiffy footwork by two dancers, and we meet Eleni with her fine voice and remarkable eyes. The grooving band, the dancing, the singing, the attempted cigarette handoff - these are but a small part of the bigger story which is is centered on Eleni and Mr. Johnson making googly eyes at each other.  Clearly romance is in the air True story -- my sister was a dating coach in a major American city.  Had she known about this video she might have used i

 There's an awful lot of Tolis Voskopoulos out there on YouTube.  You can find young Voskopoulos, old Voskopoulos, super-poppy Voskopoulos, proto-emo Voskopoulos...  According to his obituary in the Greek Reporter he was by far the most commercially successful Greek musician in the history of Greek Music.   Here we see super-young Voskopoulos with his band of teenagers (actually I don't know that; they could be just over 20) and boy do they look cool.  One of my great regrets was that, as a youngster, I was never in a band of that quality, and it is an awesome band.  The drummer is almost a hipster, the guitarist in the light jacket combines nerdiness and above-it-all-ness, the harmony singer combines a great doo with wise eyes, and Voskopoulos...  Well, he shows that he knows that he has that special "it", and that a future of fame, acclaim, and fortune awaits.  And, as for the two young women in the audience who vie for his attention, I sure hope they were able to

Here we have two most excellent scenes from the1950 movie "Come To Uncle" (or possibly "Come To Daddy") including the above-mentioned "Razor and the Sharpener" and "Like a Mouse With a Cat".   The singers are the real-life couple Tolis and Litsa Harma, backed up by the Moutstatsos Trio with two extra guitarists. Here's a short summary of what you will see, should you choose to view this wonderful video.  The older generation is chatting about things that definitely do not interest the young woman at the table (Smaroyla Giouli).  She sends a big cup down the hatch then, if my non-Greek ears are right, she says something to the effect of "Maestro - can you play some rebetika?"  The band obliges and strikes up a tune, and she scandalizes the table (but not the captivated Nikos Stravridis) by getting up and doing a fine, if relatively tame, Zembekiko dance.  As it turns out, this is one of the earliest cinematic examples of a woman danc

We've been in this bar  -- the saddest bar in the western hemisphere -- before.  It was here that the bass player had to hold his bass at an angle due to the low ceiling, it was here that nobody cracked even the faintest smile*, it was outside the bar that and it was here that yet another drunk and despairing man danced the Zemebekiko.  If you don't remember or only found this blog recently, I highly encourage you to revisit in order to re-familiarize yourself with the surroundings and to get acclimated to the air of gloom because... Because things only get worse... The music is beautiful -- the interplay between the accordion, bouzouki and vocals is almost unworldly.  As far as I can tell it is the same band as we saw previously, including the cramped bass player, except Mr. Poulopoulos' partner onstage is Aina Maurer, not Despina Stravroulakis.   While they are singing their sad song, two men, (oddly enough, bearing a slight resemblance to John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) co

 Tears, cigarette smoke, and sad, sad, music...  Need one say anything more? This is from the movie "My Heart Stop Hurting"  Ms. Vourtsis, of Russian descent, was a movie and television actress with major roles from the late 1950's to around 2010.  In the comments below the video (via Google Translate) one commentator says;  Great actress in Martha Vourtsis, always in wonderful roles, may God always bless her. Another commentator (a B. Iraklideas) indicates that her sorrow is due to the national team losing, although I am not sure that this B. Iraklideas is a reliable source... Here are the doleful lyrics, as translated by my friend Google... He covered my sun, took his light from me, in my first youth, at the first dawn, the fate that envied me and wanted me like a leaf, which the wind drags to the earth.   And I took my eyes, my empty heart without his love without the affection.   Darkness covered his eyes, the road is steep and how to climb, the one I lost and is no

Here's a haunting tune from the great Vassilis Tsitsanis, sung by Mr. Gavalas and Ms. Fineti.  Here's what I could find out about Panos Gavalas (from a translation of Greek Wikipedia) -- His first instrument was harmonica, as a youth, he played with "The Hawaiian Girls", and his career lasted until his death in 1988.  As is often the case in this sexist world, there is no information on the web about Bemba Fineti.   From the 1962 film Orphan in Foreign Hands, which according to the ever-helpful greekmovies.com site is a fairly standard rich-boy-poor-girl-disaproving-father title, which includes 1) a baby, 2) a nine year split, and 3) a fiancee.  All ends well, as these type of films are wont to do -- fiancé is discarded, couple is reunited, and little girl gets father she always had longed for... Tsitsanis appears here playing the bouzouki (to the right of the singer).  And for the purposes of this post it is well worth noting that he is playing a three course* bouzou

Astounding dress?  Check!  Fancy suit and bowtie? Check! Wonderful band with accordion, clarinet and trumpet? Check!  Hot bouzouki? Check!  Once again we're on the roller-coaster with the ever-virtuosic  Manolis Chiotis and the ever-graceful Mary Linda.   A few things stand out here.  First and foremost are the four male dancers, who get pretty modern in their moves but give Ms. Linda the attention she deserves.  Second is the pan of the audience in all their rapture.  The only questionable decision on the filmmakers part was to put dialog over Mr. Chiotis' fine solo. I don't know much about this clip from the 1965 movie "Agents 005 versus Goldilocks" which is apparently about some James Bond fans who end up involved in business / labor conflicts (thank you Google Translate and the greek movies dot com site ). If I happen to be elected mayor of Athens the first thing on my to-do list would be to erect a statue of these two... (7/30/24 -- This post has been updated

 I posted a different YouTube video of this fantastic scene last year but...  Not only was it grainy (probably direct dubbed from a VHS cassette), but the video has since been deleted.  Here's what I had to say when I originally posted it (oddly enough, one year ago today)... They laughed, they cried,  they had a grand night out.  How could it be otherwise when young Manolis Angelopoulos is holding the crowd at his fingertips and a random audience member dances on the griddle... Here's what Google Translate has to say when you feed the text below the video through its cogwheels:   The group of Thodoros Derveniotis with Manolis Angelopoulos, Nota Papanikolaou and Nikos Karanikolas in 1959. The songs "In the closed house" and "The love of a gypsy" with lyrics by Eftychia Papagiannopoulou are heard. Thanasis Vengos dances the karsilama on the griddle. From the film by Errikos Thalassinos "The date of Sunday" with Dimitris Papamichail and Kakia Analyti

 Every once in a while it seems like a good idea to take a brief detour from the world of rebetika / bouzouki / drunken-zembekiko-dancing and go upscale to hear some pop; this particular video is a doozy and features the future worldwide star Nana Mouskouri.  The video quality is excellent, the dress and hairdo are exquisite, and the band is dope (plus they whistle -- this might be the only video on this blog with such enchanting whistling).  To top off everything, there is a woman in the crowd who seems to be having one of the When Harry Met Sally -- "I'll have what she's having" moments... Nana Mouskouri's career took her far beyond Greece and Greek music -- she studied opera and jazz and is best known for her work in French (I believe this video was recorded just before she emigrated to Paris).  For more head to her wikipedia page or check out your parents Long-Play albums.  At this point she is still living (if you are reading this Nana: Howdy from the great

 Here's a nifty one.   The band takes off and Ms. Giannakopoulou stumbles onto the stage (see below) and  delivers a dazzling performance to a rapturous audience.   I am guessing (with only circumstantial evidence) that this was a scene from the 1965 movie Storm ( Kataigida ) which is, according to IMDB, about the relationship between a successful male composer and a singer whose career is going downhill and who is "battling with alcohol dependence".   The action takes place in what looks like a movie theater.  To top things off, the camera cuts away to an adjoining room where some contentious dialogue takes place, probably about her condition.  Final question -- Is the bouzouki player on the right the same person who did those hot licks at the beginning of the  Panos Gavalas and Ria Kourti video? Yota Agelastopoulou (from the comments, as translated by HRH Google*) puts it much better than I ever could.  She says  A unique and unrepeatable story of the people, she shock

 Another subtle but wonderful video!  Fine stage, great band, beautiful singer, good songs... Plus there's dancing, interesting things happening with the cheery crowd, cutaways to boats and much more.  All in all this is a fine use of your precious spare time, even if it does not hit the crazy highs and dismal lows of some of the other featured videos in this blog. Spyros Kalfopoulos was a composer, actor and musician (and that's about all I could find out).  I know even less about Kati Petrakis, except that she is totally awesome!   This seems to be from the 1959 movie I Want a Forceful Man , a title that definitely would not go over well these days.  Here's a description from IMDB Mina is married with Lakis who is too kind and soft,so she tries to make him react somehow, by flirting with another man. His friend Nionios who is a womanizer, advises him to flirt with other women too... Surprisingly, Lakis, who is as meek as a lamb, makes Mina, his wife, furious. And, as a re

It seems a while since we visited a prison, and the prisons in Greece (at least the movie-music-world-variety), what with their ever-present baglamas, are always worth visiting.  I'm not sure if there is another country on God's green earth that has an official-instrument-of-the-penal-system, but the world would be a better place if all countries followed Greece's lead and issued baglamas on arraignment.  See here and here for some other scenes of life in the pokey! This video, more than others, does justice to the baglama by letting it speak for itself - no overdubs here!  This scene from features an unbandaged  Petros Giannakkos as well as another mustachioed fellow trading off some fine picking and singing.  I am almost sure it is  Nikos Stavridis who remains, uncharacteristically, in profile the entire clip.  No idea whether this was from before or after the ill fated craps gam that produced the thrown furniture (to make sense of all this, see last week's post). T

This one came up in my feed just yesterday; it is pretty darn fantastic. Be forewarned, it is a long clip.  The first part seems to be a crap game that goes bad, ending in a brawl and a thrown stool that injures a man who will soon be doing some wonderful dancing.  If you have a plane to catch, if you are discretely watching this in your high school physics class, or if you have seen (or participated in) enough crap games gone bad, you can skip this part and start at 1:57 when the scene shifts to the taverna, or you could skip all the way to 2:45 when the band is featured. For fans of wild and inspired Zembetiko dancing, the fun starts at 4:08 when a sailor pays the band and does a fine job spinning and hoofing  (and doing a nice roll) before dusting himself off and nonchalantly sitting down with his friends.  The true highlight of the video is towards the end at 7:58  when our friend who was the recipient of the flying stool gets up and does his bit to upstage the sailor.  This dan

 Our friends at YouTube keep throwing interesting things my way. This one fooled me -- I figured it was an oddity from the 1960's but it is from a hit Greek sitcom "Dolce Vita" and from 1997!   For the obsessive, you can watch the full episode  here  -- I really have no idea how this clip fits in with the plot and with the modern aesthetics of the series.  Oddly enough there is a fine reenactment / parody (as if this needs a parody) that you can find here. According to commentator  kypreos1, t he real singers are Andreas Vasios and Ninta Kanaki.  

Nothing too offbeat or amusing here -- just a great song, a hot band, and wonderful singing... The video begins with some fine twin bouzouki playing.  Those guys know that they have something special going on and smile broadly after they pull off their riffs. This is from the 1963 movie "7 Days of Lies".  Here is the plot summary according to our friends at IMDB:  To keep the generous wedding gift by her affluent aunt, an imaginary wife enlists the help of a poor bookseller to pose as her loving husband for as long as she stays in Athens. Can he survive seven days of lying? And here are a portion of the lyrics, according to  Stojance Dezalekov (in the  comments below the video) as translated by  G oogle. You have given me bitter medicine Bitter very bitter Which if it was someone else he would have hated you But I love you, I love you   You don't hurt me, that's why you torture me You don't really love me You bully me and tear my heart apart You don't love me

The last few videos have been a bit of an emotional roller coaster, so it seems time for a beautiful and sensitive song without confetti or despairing zembekiko dancers. If you have the time and inclination, copy the notes under the video and put them through Google Translate; the story of this song, of Marinella, and of the composer and lyricist are compellingly and concisely related -- if only every Greek video came with such stories... Here's my quick distillation -- Marinella is at a turning point in her career, having broken up a successful partnership.  A more prominent artist turns down the song (rather rudely, I might add) and Marinella humbly asks if she can record it.  The result is a career defining hit and this cool video.   I should mention that, as happens in many of these videos, there seems to be little relationship between what the musicians seem to be doing and the studio recording that you hear.  On the other hand, Marinella, in a totally awesome feat that will a

 I have no actual knowledge of the realities of the 1960's taverna scene, but it seems, from viewing lots of videos, that for each joyless watering hole where tormented souls go to dance the zembekiko, there is a sister establishment where everyone is giddy and there are streamers, balloons, and a general air of joyfulness.  While this particular spot lacks balloons, it makes up for it in streamers, dancers and confetti. The chorus of the song, if Google is to be trusted, goes something like this -- I'm going to escape from prison, I'm going to go enjoy life a little.  The lyrics are all about domestic issues so I think it is relationship song, not a jail song. Vassilis Tsitsanis, who had a law degree, was one of the giants of rebetika and laika.  He composed, performed and recorded copiously and is still celebrated and revered. (7/31/24 -- Quick update -- the original for this disappeared along with a number of other videos.  This is the same video from another source)