Today’s song is an oddity, one of a dozen rebetiko songs, played on guitar, and credited to either A. Kostis or K. Kostis. They were recorded in Athens between 1930 and 1932, reportedly specifically for release in the United States.
Kostis was actually Kostas Bezos, an Athenian journalist and cartoonist who spent his nights playing music in the taverns. He was best known at the time for leading the band White Birds, which combined Hawaiian-sounding music, played on steel guitar and ukuleles, with Greek lyrics. (Bezos’s White Birds were rediscovered through a 2017 album released by a Portland, Ore. company).
The rebetiko sides were sparse and rather intimate: one or two guitars and Bezos’s low voice. The lyrics, most written by Bezos, were simple. From Dizziness Overcomes Me: “At the window, as soon as you go out, I get dizzy … I start fights with the guys about you … you got me in trouble.”
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