The Rebetiko Song in America Vol 1 1920 - 1940
Various artists
F M Records
The Greek Archives 627
| Ierotheos Schizas | Just Look at Me |
| Rosa Eskenazy | Don't Swear to It, You Liar |
| Yannis Dragatsis (Ogdontakis), Ant. Patratzis, K Skarvelas | Kasambaliotiko Zeibekiko |
| Dimitris Arapakis | The Memetis |
| Marika Papagika | In the Syngrou Jail |
| Rosa Eskenazy | Kadifis |
| Ierotheos Schizas' Mandolin Orchestra | Vlachiko Hassapiko |
| Marika Papagika | Koumbouras from Vathi Square |
| Rosa Eskenazy | Woman from Patra |
| Antonis Dalgas, Iakovos Montanaris | The Evil Mother-In-Law |
| Nondas Sgouras | The Gambler |
| Rita Abadzi | Meraki |
| Marika Papagika | Woman from Smyrna |
| Rosa Eskenazy | They Walk Around Without Any Socks On |
| Rita Abadzi | With Zournas and Daoulis |
| Stavros Kaloumenos | The Sinner |
The first recordings of Rebetiko were made in America, and they were so popular in Greece that record making factories were soon built in Greece. This CD has some amazing early treasures on it, including some unusual instrumentation. Even today, the taximia on the cymbalon at the start of "The Memetis" sounds intriguingly "spacey, man". There's lots of oriental style on here, and no noticable bouzouki tracks at all. It includes "The Evil Mother-in-Law", a song about a rather nasty murder, which sold about 90,000 copies, in the days when that was a lot of records.
"The Greek Archives" is an enormous series of CDs, and quite confusingly numbered. This is Volume 1, but there are others also referred to as Volume 1 in different groups of the series. Don't worry too much about buying the wrong ones by mistake, as these are all good!