There are any number of performers who fallen through the cracks of rebetiko history, at least when it comes to what’s available online. Sometimes it’s because their presence was fleeting – a half-dozen songs over the course of a few years. Sometimes it’s because it was early in the history of the music, when much went unrecorded.
But sometimes it’s a little inexplicable.
That’s the case with Angeliki Karayianni. There are dozens of recordings by her available on YouTube. These recordings cover more than two decades, from the late 1920s to the early 1950s. Singing alone or as part of a duet, she recorded versions of a range of rebetiko and Greek folk songs and among her recordings are compositions by Markos Vamvakaris, Apostolos Hatzichristos and others.
Karagianni made her recordings in New York, as part of the thriving Greek diaspora recording scene. Seemingly, she first went into the studio in 1926, and throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s, she recorded a number of Smyrneika rebetiko songs. In the 1940s, she recorded rebetiko and Greek folk songs and she was still recording at least as late as 1953.
Despite that, there is no biographical information that I could find, searching her name in either English or Greek. The book Greek Music in America doesn’t help, as she is mentioned only once and that is a fleeting comparison to the length of her career with that of Maria Papagika. I was able to find two photos, but neither of them are dated. (The photo above is cropped from an image at the Kounadis Archive virtual museum.)
Without any details of her life, we are left with the songs and her voice, which helped capture an era when rebetiko was coming into its own.
This song, My little Arabian playful one, is credited to Roza Eskenazi, who first recorded it in 1936.
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