The Rebetika Songs of the Occupation and the Resistance

Rembetiko music did not fall silent during the years of the Occupation, as its leading composers continued to write, leaving behind a repertoire that remains among the least known of the genre and is rarely heard today. The concert titled “The Rebetika of the Occupation and the Resistance,” presented by the Greek Music Workshop of the City of Athens on Saturday, October 24, at the Olympia, the “Maria Callas” Municipal Music Theater. The singers are Fotini Velesiotou and Babis Tsertos, two performers with long careers in rebetiko, with arrangements and musical direction by Angelos Ilias.

During those difficult years, rebetiko became a living chronicle of the era. Hunger, the black market, the black-market dealers, the bombings, the prisons, and even the Resistance—all find their way into the songs of people who wrote about what was happening around them, often at the very moment the events were unfolding.

Songs from this period include “Saltadoros,” “Mavragorites,” and “Raid on Piraeus” by Michalis Genitsaris, “Haidari” by Markos Vamvakaris, as well as “Na ‘nai glyko to voli” by Dimitris Gogos, known as Bayantera, which is dedicated to the Resistance. Through the directness of its vernacular language, rebetiko captures an entire society striving to survive, resist, and preserve its voice. A distinctive feature of this repertoire is that many of the songs were not recorded when they were written, but much later. During the Occupation, record production in Greece had come to a halt, and songs were passed down by word of mouth and through musicians’ live performances. Some made it onto records after the war, while others were preserved thanks to the memories of their creators…

Source: https://cultureisathens.gr/en/event/the-rebetika-songs-of-the-occupation-and-the-resistance