While the golden age of rebetiko fell in the middle of the 20th century – roughly 1920 to 1950, at least on record – it’s a genre that has never really gone away. There have been several revivals and there were older rebetes still writing and recording rebetiko into the 1960s and beyond.
(Today, rebetiko is a mainstay of tavernas in Greece and Greek restaurants around the world. And the songs are part of the concert repertoire of many major Greek performers.)
One of those who carried rebetiko into the later years of the 1900s was Giorgos Mouflouzelis, who was only recognized for his music later in life.
He was born in Mytilene, taught himself bouzouki, baglama and tsouras, and performed on Mytilene and other Aegean islands, before permanently relocating to Athens in 1958. There, he met many of the stars of 1930s rebetiko and some of the new, laiko singers. He made his first recording of his own songs in 1968, when he was in his late 40s.
Many of Mouflouzelis’s songs sound like they come straight from rebetiko’s classic era, including this one: Where Are You, Dude, in the Winter?
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