When I Googled Kostas Dousas, I got plenty of hits but not much biographical information. Almost all those hits are links to videos of the handful of songs he recorded in the 1930s or links to sites selling copies of albums or PDFs (in Greek) analyzing his guitar playing. On two usually busy rebetiko forums there are appeals for information on Dousas, one from a poster in 2004 and the other from 2007. There have been no answers to either.
There are some possibilities mooted at a couple of sites. One musical sleuth has found a Konstantinos Dousias emigrating to the U.S. in 1912, at age 44, and another has found a grave with the name Dousas in Lodi, California, but that’s about it. Online sources such as Discog show only a handful of releases on 78s, and his inclusion on some modern compilation and tribute LPs, such as the 2018 release a London label that featured 10 of his songs.
What we do know is that he was a guitarist and singer of rebetiko and traditional Greek songs. He recorded in Chicago in the 1930s, cutting 18 sides between 1930 and 1937. The recordings – of traditional Greek songs and rebetiko – have proven popular among later generations of musicians. His plaintive vocal style, accompanied mainly by his fingerstyle guitar, fits firmly into the early rebetiko canon that includes Kostas Bezos and Yiorgos Katsaros, and has helped influence modern rebetiko interpreters such as Dimitris Mystakdis.
The Trawler is a traditional Greek song that fits easily into the rebetiko repertoire. It was recorded in 1932 in Chicago, with Dousas singing and playing guitar, and and an uncredited musician playing what sounds like banjo.
Leave a Reply