Πάμε στο τεκέ μου

Sotiris Gavalas is another of the pre-WWII composers who left a small but important legacy of rebetiko songs.

Not much is known about Gavalas (and online sources are somewhat contradictory). He appears to have only been active as a composer during the 1930s. Between 1932 and 1937, 15 songs that he composed were recorded by the leading performers of the time, and almost all of them have passed into the rebetiko repertoire. He was also a vocalist and baglama player who is credited with four recordings.

Gavalas is not known to have been involved with music after World War II.

Twelve-Year-Old Girl was first recorded by Rosa Eskanazi in 1934. While several of Gavalas’s songs were hasiklis (songs that involved hashish), the lyrics of this song – about a young widow lamenting her fate – are closer to folk song lyrics. This version is another of the modern covers by Manos Chamarakis.