Here we have the other Tsitsanis, the older brother of Vasilis, who plays a small part in the history of rebetiko and a larger role in some of the conspiracy theories that surround the music.
While it is reported that Christos “Kitsos” Tsitsanis, a bouzouki player, singer and composer, followed his younger brother to Athens in the 1930s and played in some Piraeus taverns, it appears he spent much of his life running the family’s taverna in his birthplace, Trikala. He performed there as part of a lively Trikala rebetiko scene. But his presence on records is slim. (Discogs lists only one writing credit.) On YouTube, there appear to be only two recordings: both solo live recordings that have a home-made feel to them.
The conspiracy theory is that Christos was actually a better bouzouki player than his brother Vasilis, and that many of the songs attributed to Vasilis were actually written by Christos.
Based on the two YouTube videos, the claim that Christos was the better bouzouki player seems unlikely. The taxims that start the pieces and his accompaniment are reminiscent of the rebetiko of the mid-’30s, not the flashier, more intricate style of the 1950s that Tsitsanis played a major role in standardizing.
Christos did write some of the songs credited to his brothers. Late in his life, Vasilis told a music researcher there 18 songs (from his hundreds of compositions) that were wholly or partly compositions by Christos: Some were based on melodies that Christos had written, others were Christos’s songs with new introductions from Vasilis and so on.
Since Christos and Vasilis are no longer with us (and many of those who knew and played with them are also gone) we will never know. It makes for some intense debates on some of the rebetiko forums (an example, in Greek). I think, too, that it points to a more general conversation about music creation – in no way limited to rebetiko – and how influences travel from song to song and how parts and pieces of songs are borrowed by other composers to create new works. In the end, how pure can the creator of a work really be given that many of them swim in the same musical sea?
It is a shame that there is not more in the recorded repertoire from Christos. If his compositions were good enough to make their way into Vasilis’s repertoire, they must have been good indeed. (We may get a hint of that: apparently Vasilis’s song Play, Christos, the bouzouki was based on a tune provided by Christos.)
I have no information about when Sit down and listen was recorded by Christos. The song is generally credited to Vasilis, but who knows?
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