1950's and 1960's Greek Music Videos

Fouli Dimitriou is one of those singers who radiates joy!  If that club was in my neighborhood, I would be spending all my time there absorbing her magic... Meanwhile Michalis begins the video looking like a minor politician about to give an ag-policy speech to a rotary club in a provincial town, but livens up as he starts to sing.   Rather than obsess about his awesome haircut, the astute viewer should look to the upper left and admire the drummer.* This is from the movie Agapisa ke ponesa (I Loved and It Hurt).  Here's a plot summary via IMDB...   After a momentary lapse of judgment, an impecunious husband finds himself behind bars, losing both his freedom and his wife who's eloped with her ex-lover. Now, a desperate search for the missing mother commences. Will the family reunite? * Here is Googles translation of a comment from @lymperidisioannis:  The drummer is Vasiliadis' brother...can't remember name...excellent...!!! he was always doing havale and at some point

 Here's a cha-cha (or maybe a bolero?) from the great Manolis Chiotis and Mary Linda. While this is definitely not their best video (see this for swing, t his for awesome outfits and stagecraft, this for antics, and this for late night bliss), and while the editing is terrible (there is no relationship whatsoever between Manolis' magic fingers and the music on the soundtrack) and the band is not featured at all, it remains a sweet and lovely reminder of just how wonderful this duo was... Here's a quick translation of the lyrics, thanks to Frere Google: I never want you to come again, I confess never be in my way to see you You will remind me of the old days of our first nights you will also remind me of our first heartbeats   I don't want you to come again I don't want fire in my heart anymore I don't want to love you anymore I try to forget you   Since you left me, why are you asking to come back? Before you go, you should think about it I loved you and you

 This video starts with a delightful shot of the legs of a dancer -- as is often the case, I am jealous of this fellows shimmying skills as well as his awesome black and white shoes -- they simply don't seem to have shoes like this in my neighborhood shoe shop. We met Yiannis (or Giannis) Poulopoulos a few posts ago in a taverna that may have been the most joyless space in all of Greece.  Here we get to see him in a happier mode and singing with the delightful Elena Kladis.  As in so many of these videos, there is a bit of drama going on -- this time it is a drunken and loathsome character who joins the boogying and ends up doing some plate-smashing (although, for all I know, he is the likable hero of the film who is on a spree).   From the 1966 Movie "The Four Legged Man".  Here is a Google translated plot summary from greek-movies.com: A provincial cafe owner (Kostas Hatzichristos) hopes to conquer one of the village girls. After some strange turn of events, he starts t

 Here's something a little different -- a pleasant domestic scene with a family, a piano and some duet and communal singing (and one of the youngsters playing bouzouki type lines on guitar).  All in all a picture of bliss -- hopefully the phone call at the very end doesn't change anything, but unless you watch the 1967 film "The Wren Who Became a Lamb" you may never know. Slim Yannis, in the comments section (helpfully translated by Google) raves about the pianist -- " Maro Kotou belongs to the generation of miracle women who raised Greek cinema to its peak. Beautiful, funny, talented, a wonderful actress."   

 Life with the swells... Hopefully I have this right.  There's a shindig with an upper-crustish crowd..  A pianist and violinist are playing but not wowing the small soiree.  Fortunately, the bouzoukis show up in the nick of time.  The classical musicians are recruited (paid off?) into the band, a partygoer is recruited to sing (actually two), the party gets hotted up, and there is dancing and hi-jinks. I've been to parties like this in the upscale neighborhoods of my town, with banjo and fiddle players, so I find this scenario 100% believable.  From the 1958 film "Unlucky in Love". Here is a quick translation of the plot summary from greek-movies.com .    A janitor, Michel, a florist, Grigoris, and a taxi driver, Aristotle, lose their jobs on the same day and on a bench, where the unlucky take refuge, they get to know each other and become friends. While they are walking, they find a letter on the road from which they are informed that a very wealthy Greek-American,

 According to a man who never made a commercial for Gillette Razors, Leo Tolstoy himself,  " All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way".  This may be true for families, but not necessarily for highly inebriated fellows in tavernas -- he seems unhappy in almost the exact same way as another fellow who we met in " The Sky is Closed " (the dude who was  sitting at the glory table between barrels #2 and #3 and got up to do some Zeibekio dancing and shot glass tossing).  This borachio doesn't toss a shot glass, but when he steps out, he busts moves that definitely ring a bell. One of the outstanding features of this particular video is the mood -- apart from the bartender who has a very cute smile before he succumbs to the overall gloom, everyone seems to have the demeanor of a youngster who, for the first time, saw what happened when Bambi's mom and a hunter crossed paths.   The music is haunting and sad, the singing is wonderf

Petros has an epic pompadour and a fine pencil mustache (I am personally very jealous of both) and Mary has a magnificent Greek version of a "Gibson Girl" hairstyle ..  Even if the music was just so-so, their looks would make the whole thing worthwhile.  But... not only are the singers tight, the band in fine form, and the music top-notch, but the bongo player brings off the intro with flair and elan using only his index and middle fingers -- just imagine what he could do using all his digits... A few things to note... Mary, with the doo, is just lip-syncing.  The real singing was done by Roula Kalaki who was Petros' duet partner on several recordings.  I don'y know how this compares, ethically, to the whole Milli Vanilli thing. The movie is "The Lazy Dog" from 1963.  IMDB summarizes the movie as....  A lazy and wasteful slacker who enjoys living off his hard-working brother reluctantly accepts to work as a debt collector. Now, he is in love, and for once i

For some reason, after the last few posts, YouTube's algorithm decided that what I really needed was lots of bad Greek pop, and I've been lost in a world of super-cute singers and over-the-top choreography -- nothing that should be seen by any self-respecting citizen (thus the radio silence).   Anyway, here is a fine video to brighten your February days.  A few, super-cool things to note.  First is that it feels like true, real, down-home rembetiko, which I have missed during these grim days of relentless cuteness.  Secondly, Zampetas is fond of making those spoken asides that make old Greek records so awesome.  Finally, the videographer does an exceptional job capturing some of the characters inhabiting that particular taverna -- a wonderful assortment of faces (that probably isn't Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees looking on at 0:22 but one never knows -- stranger things have happened*) I always assume that the audience for this blog does not speak Greek.  I certainly don

If you are new to this blog, for Gods sake, skip this video and go to something epic and great like this , this , or this   or almost any video featured in this blog -- videos that will wow you, transform your life, and provide you with your fix of culture, drama, and fantastic music.  This video is a travesty, an absolute waste of your precious time! That being said, if you have time to waste, and if you are a fan of junk food, this is the Hostess Ding-Dong of Greek music videos. Personally, I am embarrassed, abashed, and ashamed at how many times I have viewed this video and how much I like it, bad music, over-the-top conceptualizing, and general creepiness aside.  With that said, there is no way I want to research anything about this video -- If I were involved I would feel much better without my name attached to this. Here it is in all its black and white glory.  Enjoy and repent (then enjoy and repent again and again)!

Wow! I keep learning so much about Greek life in the 1960's!  As far as I can tell, this is a very typical day in a Greek jail in that era.  There's a chap with a baglama hidden under his jacket*.  There also are about seven men, probably mangas** -- not the hard-case, tough-guy manga,  but instead the gentler, kinder, 3-part-harmonizer variety of manga.  Also in the hoosegow with these demi-toughs is a super-cute young woman in fine clothes who is mostly teary, except when she sings and flits those eyes of hers***. Musically, after some fine Baglama playing, things get a little schmaltzy**** as the harmonizing manga-lads sing some and the young women with the hat bats those eyes, grins an alluring grin, and sings right back.  Oh, and one of the jailbirds does some fine shimmying during the breaks in the repartee.  Again, this song is less for rebetika fans and more for fans of Milly's "My Boy Lollypop" (which, coincidentally, happened to be an international hit i

 This is one more of my favorites -- I spent the past few months deep in the YouTube mines, trying to relocate and re-excavate this.  The plot is as follows: a fellow is on a binge, sitting at the glory table between barrels #2 and #3, and clearly not at his chippiest.  The Theordarakis tune starts with a drum roll, and like a Quaker in a meeting house moved by the spirit, the squiffed dud feels compelled to stand up and  dance.  This alone would be a great few minutes of video, but it gets better.  The camera cuts to a woman in her bedroom who is listening to the same song on a 78 rpm single and, by pure coincidence, feels compelled to drink and dance.  The rest of the video cuts back and forth between her subdued and depressed dancing and his wild and crazy antics (and note, at 1:59, the dirty looks from the bandleader right after our friend tosses a shot glass). The fellow who posted this, whose birth name probably was not Gollum534, notes that he does not think that the woman who i

 My guess is that Uncle Google translated this wrong, but what an overwhelmingly awesome title!!  After translating and reading the extensive text in the description, I am not sure if that is the title of the song, or the title of the movie but, not to over-hammer the point, I heartily approve of the title! A second wonderful thing about this clip is the lad with the big appetite.  Personally, one of the things in my life that I am most proud of, is that I won the spaghetti eating contest at the Rancho-OSO summer camp, sometime back when the Nixon administration was just getting going.  To my knowledge there is no filmed record of my accomplishment, but watching the moppet scarfing it down certainly brings back the memories. One more interesting thing to note -- usually musicians prefer to be in proximity to one another.  This is a rare video for featuring musicians who are playing together from opposite sides of a room...

Another epic one.  Here Dinos Iliopoulos finally plays the baglama (or fakes it -- I think he is faking it but  he is doing so awesomely!). Manolis and Mary are their usual selves - dressed to the nines, virtuosic, and full of spunk.  Mary is a wonderful singer and combines joy, grace, and fabulous dance moves.   Dinos is an irrepressible goof -- in a just world he would be as famous as Jackie Chan... I had no luck figuring out which movie this was from.  It could be another scene from "My Friend Lefterakis" but I am not sure.  It wouldn't surprise me if Dinos insisted that Manolis and Mary were in all his films!   Here are some of the lyrics. Your brothers and all your relatives are after me I'm also being chased by your mother for messing with you I'm a naughty kid and I'll clean up And don't lose your temper, I'll come inside your brothers I will talk to them Don't care about anything and let them beat each other and not many loving hearts part

 If nights in the sophisticated Athens clubs were filled with balloons, clowns with cocktails , and drunken philanderers this is what daytime in the poorer sections of town might have been like -- dancing gypsies, fruit stealing and a fellow with a player piano.   If the notes and Google's translation bot are to be believed, the music is by Manos Hadjidakis, Vassilis Avlonitis & Marianna Hatzopoulou (who does the singing) and the lyrics are by Alekos Sakellarios.   Here is a short sample of the alleged lyrics... You read the stars in the sky and the lines on your hand like the old witches, witches, witches. But you haven't succeeded in reading a heart heart that you broke, broke, broke.

One band is getting ready to play, the other is onstage.  The on-deck singer, Martha (Nitsa Antonatou) hears her long lost husband, Nikos (Xanthopoulos Vourtsis) singing and joins in.  Soon they are singing harmony and walking towards each other in a delirious daze.  There is a brief hug at the end (but if you watch the movie there is more hugging and kissing and within two minutes the movie ends as they walk down the street together arm in arm. My sense is that the instrumental introduction and interlude seems very closely related to the great Mexican song Cielito Lindo.  Coincidence?  From the 1965 Movie Καρδιά μου πάψε να πονάς (or, as my buddy Google translates it, "My Heart Stop Hurting". -- no idea whether this is a command or that it should be "Stops").   I did watch much of the movie (sadly without subtitles so I couldn't make heads or tails of the dialog) and I can cheerfully report that it is chock-full of great musical  performances from both of the l

 Here's another one by Stelios Kazantzidis & Marinella.  My favorite feature of this video is that he is looking fairly jaded as he sings and plays, and she is looking so happy and thrilled to be there.   This is from the Movie "Madame Mayor".  According to  Μετο Βαμβάκι  who commented on the video, the title the song Zinguala refers to a Swedish gipsy named Singola.   imdb translates the title of the movie as The Mayoress, and describes it as such.  Two antagonistic tavern owners who announced their candidacy for the upcoming mayoral election, are totally in the dark about their children's clandestine affair.  Are both. candidates prepared to sacrifice their ambitions for their sake?

 A simple premise; Keiti Gray, Vasili's Tsitsanis and band are jamming after hours in a club taverna; in the adjoining kitchen the heroine is washing dishes.  As she washes and listens she gradually breaks down in tears.  Not too much plot but, nevertheless, poignant.

 This one is sure worth watching.  I sure wish I spoke Greek and had a deep knowledge of Greek cinema; with those skills I would be able to definitively state what the heck is going on in this video.  Here is my take -- this seems to take place in some place of detention (definitely not a full fledged "Jailhouse Rock" penitentiary).  A fellow is escorted in and Christakis immediately begins singing (and having high spirited conversations) about Mangas; there are also some awesome dance moves! According to Gail Holst, The Mangas were men who formed a sub-culture on the fringe of society... The nearest equivalents in English are probably 'spivs', 'wide boys' or 'hep-cats'.  *    Maybe in light of the title, 'Mangas' and 'dude' are interchangeable.**  

This is exactly how a band should respond to a fight amongst the patrons.  When everyone in the outdoor taverna is cool, calm, and collected, the band sticks to mournful songs, but once the brawl starts the musicians respond with vim and vigor

Another fine song and performance by another wonderful singer.  There is an extended conversation between two patrons, who don't seem to be particularly enamored with one another.  I like to think that they are industrial spies with conflicting views of the importance of certain machine parts.*