Reportedly, only a dozen songs by Yiovan Tsaous were recorded before he stopped writing songs in response to the Metaxas’ censorship decrees. Despite that, he played an outsized role in early rebetiko, not only for the quality of his songs, but for teaching bouzouki to many of those who carried the rebetiko torch over the next couple of decades.
Tsaous, of Greek Pontic origin, was a muti-instrumentalist and a master musician. He played a unique bouzouki that was based partly on the design of the Turkish saz. It featured movable frets so he could play microtonal notes more commonly found in Turkish music.
Tragically, he and his wife died in 1942 of food poisoning, during the Nazi occupation of Athens, from eating bad food.
A note about this song: While the title (Σε μια μικρούλα) translates as To a Little Girl, that shouldn’t be taken literally. Mikroula (little girl) is a term of affection. It is likely that it is a young woman driving the singer mad, not a child.
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