Vassilis Tsitsanis ΒΑΣΙΛΗΣ ΤΣΙΤΣΑΝΗΣ
Born January 18, 1915,
Trikala Died January 18, 1984,
London
Section 14, Number 16B
Contributed by
Nicole Mabger
Referred to as Tsitsanis, Vlachos*, or by friends as Tsilios or Tsilas, Vassilis Tsitsanis is a legend. He has been called a musical genius, the ‘bard of the Greek people’ and the ‘Greek blues master’. Tsitsanis has earned his place in the history of Greek music with his unrivalled compositions, his bouzouki virtuosity, and the sheer number of unforgettable lyrics he has written. His musical vision changed the Greek music world, contributing to the formation of ‘new laika’ – an innovative form of popular urban music. Perhaps most importantly, during the harshest times in modern Greek history, -the dark days of dictatorship, the German occupation, and the Civil War - he was able to absorb and express the historical mood and become the hope, the strength,and the very ‘consciousness’ of the nation.
His Early Life
In 1900 Tsitsanis’ parents left Epirus and moved east to settle in
Trikala, a part of Greece already liberated from Turkish rule. His father
Kostas was a tsarouchi maker (hammering
out the traditional leather shoes with pompoms that are worn today by Evzones).
Together with his wife Victoria they produced fourteen children, but only four
survived. In his free time, Kostas would play the mandola, a cousin of the mandolin and sing popular kleftika songs which romanticized the ‘mountain
men’ living free outside of Ottoman interference. But wanting something better for
his son, he paid for the violin lessons in which the young Vassilis excelled.
When he was 11, his father died and the family fell quickly into
poverty. (During the years after 1926, the entire country was wretched and unstable.
Between 1924 and 1935, there were 23 changes of government). Life for Vassilis became
almost unbearable. His mastery of the violin came in handy for making a little
money but it was the lowly bouzouki that had captivated his heart. He had the mandolin of his father modified by
a local music instrument maker into a bouzouki and then, as if acknowledging his own ‘folk’ origins,
he made the bouzouki his instrument of choice. (1)
Luckily for him, Trikala in those days was a deep well of musical
treasures where he could absorb the music of Smyrnian refugees (Smyrneika), ‘kleftika’, local serenades (kantades’), traditional folk songs (dimotika), and western music like the foxtrot
or the tango. Vassilis did what he had to in order to live. He took on jobs at
taverns, delivered newspapers, played at local church fairs (panigiria), and even serenaded those
who could afford to hire the horse-drawn carriages (amakses) of the day.
One
of the old time carriages
Playing his bouzouki for a
pittance, came at a psychological cost. He would never forget the undisguised
contempt with which he was treated and the humiliation he felt when well-off
members of the Trikala community would toss coins to him and say: hey you,
play! (pekse re’). It was during that time, of poverty and stigmatization, that
he challenged himself and made a vow: that he would become a loved and
respected musician. (2)
He wrote his first song at the age of fifteen.
Athens
(1936-1938)
In 1936 he went to Athens to study law, but lack of funds hampered
his studies and perhaps the fascination with the bouzouki and music clubs was
stronger. Rebetika – the music ‘on
the margins’- and the so called ‘hasiklidika’ (hashish influenced songs) which
were sung in the underground music scene had been banned by the Metaxas regime.(3)
Undaunted, Vassilis set out to transform the outlawed music by putting his own
stamp on it. His first admirers were students visiting taverns such as ‘Platano’
and, later on, ‘Bizelia’. They spread the word about Vlacho’s new style of
music. The old rebetes sensed that Tsitsanis was taking their music to another
place and bringing their own era to an end but they could not resist his songs.
So they played the ‘new’ music too.
The pivotal moment in Tsitsanis’ life came when he made the acquaintance
of singer Dimitris Perdikopoulos (Δημήτρης Περδικόπουλος) who introduced him to Columbia Records where, in 1937, he recorded
his first song, Slow the Carriage, my Good Man (Siga Kale Mou Tin Amaksa).
with
Perdikopoulos
In less than a year, he became so popular that the three existing recording
companies (Columbia, His Master’s Voice,
and Odeon) were fighting for exclusivity. .
Thessaloniki
(1938-1946)
In 1938 Tsitsanis moved to Thessaloniki where
he remained throughout the German occupation. That same year he was conscripted
into the Telegraphists’ Regiment. He continued composing and was often absent
without leave to play at taverns. He was penalized but made the most of the quiet
isolation of the disciplinary facility to write more songs. The most famous one from this period was The
Lady (Archontisa) written in 1938.
The songs he
wrote were inspired by childhood experiences and stories told by soldiers,
neighbours, and shop keepers; they expressed hopes, dreams, love and despair
and would be sung by singers such as Stratos Pagioumtzis, Stelios Perpiniadis (known as Stellakis)
and Markos Vamvakaris.
with Vamvarakis
He managed to release more than one hundred
songs before the record companies were shut down by the Germans in 1941. In
1942 he married Zoe Samara with whom he had two children, Victoria and Kosta. With
more responsibilities on his shoulders, he decided to open a day time tavern
called the ‘Ouzeri Tsitsanis’ in the centre of the occupied city. (4)
The Ouzeri
Tsitsanis
He played new songs whose lyrics were full of
metaphors, symbols, and sometimes cryptic messages in an effort to escape
problems with the occupiers and those who collaborated with them. (5)
In his ouzeri, the poor rubbed shoulders with
the powerful and the rich: luggage carriers, black market merchants, sailors, and
the underground resistance. Even the Germans sometimes savoured his melodies and
the lyrics of songs such as: Magical Nights (NichtesMagikes), Beautiful Thessaloniki (Omorfi Thessaloniki), and, of course, his
most famous song Cloudy Sunday (Synefiasmeni
Kyriaki) - an oblique (and bleak) reference to the German occupation. This song,
in particular, has become embedded in the soul of the Greek people.
Athens (1946-1984)
Tsitsanis
returned to an impoverished Athens in 1946, the year when a traumatized, post-war
Greece entered one of the most tragic periods of its history, the full blown
Civil War. At every tavern he played, he
attracted ‘aficionados’. One of these
was the young musician Manos Hatjidakis.
With
Hadjidakis
Awestruck
by Tsitsanis’ music and attracted to rebetika which he valued for its genuine
folk qualities, Hatzidakis introduced and promoted the genre to an upper-class
audience in his now famous lecture at the Arts Theatre in 1949. Because of this
exposure, Tsitsanis became even more popular. His fame brought to him singers
whose voices would inspire him: Ioanna Georgakopoulou, Markos Vamvakaris, SotiriaBellou,
Prodromos Tsaousakis, and Marika Ninou.
with
Sotiria Bellou
During
the first two decades in Athens, he played at many hang-outs or ‘koutoukia’,
taverns and bars, such as O Marios, Fat Jimmy’s, Tsitsifies and Falirikon.
(In 1964 he settled in the night club Harama
in Kaisariani and remained loyal to it until his death in 1984.)
The
decade following the end of the WWII was probably the most prolific and
successful of his career. Once again, he captured the pulse of the people and touched
their sensitivities with songs like Be a little Patient(Kane ligaki Ipomoni), We
are Tramps (Eimaste Alania), Little
Crabs (Kavourakia) ,and Dawn
Comes and Night Falls (Ximeroni
kai Vradiazi). The most captivating of all was his 1947 song, A
Mother is Sighing (Kapia Mana Anastenazi). It was written in the midst
of the civil war and sung by both sides because it expressed so beautifully the
deep sadness of a mother waiting for her son to return from war.
with Stella
Haskil and Papaioannou
Tsitsanis as
a Person
Tsitsanis’ character
played a significant role in his art. He was
the epitome of professionalism and perseverance. And yet, he was refined,
gentle, and modest in manner. He could
be earthy, sombre and harsh, and still vivacious and gentle. His lyrics
often dealt with concepts such as honour,
solidarity, resistance, family, betrayal, duty, and country and yet his
breadth of spirit enabled him to rise above impulsive reactions and petty
frictions. During his lifetime he never
claimed a political affiliation. In return, he was not overtly embraced by the
Right or the Left although, according
to his biographer Sotos Alexiou, he did write EAM’s anthems. (6)
Tsitsanis and Women
Women were Tsitsanis’ muses,
representing hope and passion for life. He made songs for female voices to sing,
words of love, consolation, anguish and rage, lyrics showing that women and men
shared the same emotions, be they love or pain. He saw women in all their
complexity: words such as lady (archontisa), bohemian (boemisa ), little doll (kouklitsa), dreamy (oniremeni ), nymph (neraida), little love (agapoula), amorous one, (erotiara), witch (magisa ), bad one (kakourga), ungrateful one (acharisti), crazy (treli) and cunning
(pamponiri) all appear in his
lyrics .
He changed the way in which women
presented themselves on stage by encouraging them to get up from the chairs
they had traditionally sat on while performing so that they could express the
feelings in the songs more freely.
Women reciprocated his
admiration. Singer Marika Ninou believed he could do no wrong. She worshipped
Tsitsani and together they became a very successful commercial duo.
With Marika Ninou
Between 1949 and 1953 they lived
through a stormy, passionate affair that inspired him to write one hundred
songs in the first two years of their relationship, and one, Better
now, then Later Today or Tomorrow
(TiSimera, tiAvrio, Ti Tora), as a message to end it!
Tsitsanisas as an Artist
Tsitsanis was brilliant as a composer,
lyricist, and bouzouki player. His voice was ‘unpretentious’ and yet he developed a remarkable
method of nasal singing in a staccato
manner that people loved and it became his trademark. He removed the stigma that had originally been
attached to the bouzouki; it became the lead instrument in the new musical
culture. By incorporating
western features, ridding earlier rebetika lyrics of their more ‘seedy’ connotations,
eliminating some oriental elements (while keeping others), simplifying earlier musical
scales (major and minor) and changing them into ‘minorakia’ and ‘matzorakia’,
as he liked to say, he altered the original rebetika style and created a new
one - nealaika.
He was not shy about promoting himself: the recurrence
of his name in the lyrics and the titles of his songs was unprecedented: Tsitsanis
in the Jungle (O
TsitsanisstinZougla)\ and The
Minore of Tsitsani (To Minore touTsitsani) are two examples.(7)
His Legacy
Tsitsanis’ composed over 500
songs and made innumerable recordings. His Thessaloniki School of Rebetiko produced
a generation of young musicians, who later influenced the musical genre ‘entechno’
( Έντεχνo) (8) represented by composers such as Hatzidakis, Theodorakis, Loizos
and Moutsis.
Hatzidakis compared
him to a Bach, a Beethoven or a Mozart. Theodorakis considered himself
Tsitsanis’ humble pupil. Painter Yannis Tsarouchis claimed that, thanks to
Tsitsanis, Greece could take pride in having had some culture during the
harshest years of its history.
On the
international scene, Woody Allan used his music in the film Mighty Aphrodite and in 1980 UNESCO sponsored
the recording of a double album of Tsitsanis’ songs called Harama. In 1985, the same album received a distinguished award from
the Académie Charles Cros
in France.
Tsitsanis, however,
always craved recognition from his hometown of Trikala. It finally came in 1980
when the city organized an annual international musical festival called the Tsitsania’. (In 2017, the city of Trikala
opened the Tsitsanis Museum which is housed in a 16th century
Ottoman bath house.)
Tsitsanis died
on 18 January 1984 on his 69th birthday following lung surgery at the
Royal Brompton Hospital in London. He
was mourned all over Greece.
His Grave
The Map
Footnotes
(1) The bouzouki was not well known or popular in
Greece in the 1920s. In fact, the first time the instrument was recorded in
Greece was in 1932. The artist was Markos Vamvakaris,
(2) Tsitsanis never wanted to be a mediocre
musician and challenged himself to either become famous quickly, or leave the
music scene. In one of his rare interviews in 1972, Tsitsanis said, when I finished the song, I imagined the whole
world singing it. I hoped within me, that the world would embrace and accept my
songs (http://en.protothema.gr/centennial-anniversary-of-the-birth-of-vasilis-tsitsanis/.) The Greek singer Dalaras who knew him
personally said, Tsitsanis….did not want
to live and die on the small stage of the taverns.
(3) Rebetika was the
music of choice of many of the one and a half million refugees who flooded
Greece from Asia Minor after 1922. Life was difficult for them and many of
these refugees became part of an urban underworld of the poor; many took drugs
to alleviate their situation. As the name Rebetika
suggests, (Rembet is Turkish word
meaning insubordinate, rebellious, or undisciplined) this ex tempore underground music, sung at small clubs or in homes was
an outlet for a lot of frustration. The term Hasiklidika, (hashish’ music) speaks for
itself. The Metaxas regime suspected its followers of being anti-government at
best and communists at worst, and banned
their music. For an excellent discussion in Greek of the origins of Rebetika
see https://www.newsbeast.gr/weekend/arthro/2501912/ta-chasiklidika-rempetika-pou-sokaran-tin-ellada-tou-mesopolemou
(4) The Ouzeri was opened by Tsitsanis and his
brother-in- law. A movie called the Ouzeri Tsitsanis
was made in 2015.
(5) It
helped that Nikolaos Mouschounti, the director of the State Security Department
in Thessaloniki during the German occupations was lover of rebetika and had
been best man at Tsitsanis’ wedding.
(6)EAM
(National Liberation Front) – the main leftist movement of the Greek Resistance
during the Axis occupation of Greece.
(7) During his long career, there were some disputes over authorship.
Lyricist Eftichia Papaianopoulou claimed the song ‘Kavourakia’, and there was
even a court case over the ownership of Cloudy Sunday’ (SynnefiasmeniKyriaki),
which Tsitsanis won.
(8) Entexna: Entechna is a Greek
music genre of the late 1950s. These are songs with orchestral music containing
elements from folk music and ‘laika’ (popular music). The lyrics are often political and often based on the
work of famous Greek poets. Two of the
most well-known composers of entechna are
Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis.
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