Giorgos Katsaros, by Giorgos Katsaros

Giorgos Katsaros

by Giorgos Katsaros

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Includes unlimited streaming of Giorgos Katsaros via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.

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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
*RED VINYL*

comes with 4pg booklet featuring biography and lyric translations

Includes unlimited streaming of Giorgos Katsaros via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/96kHz.

ships out within 5 days

Purchasable with gift card

$23 USD or more

1.	The Upper Village of Syros 03:51	buy track
2.	Look What A Mangas I Am 04:35	buy track
3.	Now I Take Them 04:23	buy track
4.	Sometimes Black, Sometimes White 04:26	buy track
5.	The Tavern and the Dice 03:55	buy track
6.	Last Night at Garipi’s 04:32	buy track
7.	All Day He Plays Dice 04:32	buy track
8.	And Why Don’t You Tell Us? 04:37	buy track
9.	Since You Don’t Want Me As Your Partner 04:11	buy track
10.	The Doctor 04:25	buy track

about

~~~~From Mississippi and Olvido Records~~~~~~
Steel-string guitar and vocals by the great Giorgos Katsaros, a mythic figure of Greek rembetiko.

Our obsession with underground Greek music continues with 10 ultra-rare recordings of heartbreak and vice from rembetiko legend Giorgos Katsaros. Katsaros, who by some accounts lived to be over 100 years old, carried the old songs of Greece to the Diaspora in the United States, bridging centuries of music in one storied lifetime.

Born in 1901 on the Greek island of Amorgos, Katsaros’ was enchanted with the songs he picked up as a kid in the streets of Piraeus and Athens. Encouraged by his grandfather, an amateur singer, Katsaros developed a style that mirrored his upbringing - centuries-old Asia Minor songs, island rhythms of his homeland, well-known Athenian songs of the time, and anonymous ‘rebetiko’ songs. Katsaros’ songbook was vast, but he was most drawn to the street life and music of the manges of early 20th-century Greece: outcasts who dealt with the indignities of an unstable economy and an inauspicious future with the old standbys: wine, hash, and dancing.

These ten tracks are remastered from Katsaros's 64 surviving early recordings, many rarely heard since their original release. Hypnotic melodies plucked over repeating thumbed basslines back his deep, mournful voice.

Katsaros brought this nostalgic late-night music to smoke-filled rooms of Greek exiles in Chicago, Philly, and New York, where he emigrated in 1917. He continued to travel the country and play until his music was supplanted by more modern styles in the 1950s. He retired to the town of Tarpon Springs, FL, famous for its Greek sponge fishers, til a late-in-life revival brought him back to Greece for a few massive concerts and national accolades in the 1990s.

Like many great artists, Katsaros carefully curated his own mythic backstory over the decades. He sometimes claimed he was born in 1888, making him 109 on his passing, and conflicting accounts of his birth and travels circulate to this day. Greek researchers Stavros Kourousis and Konstantinos Kopanitsanos, who also compiled these tracks, contribute groundbreaking new historical research on Katsaros’ life. Lyrics, poetically translated by Tony Klein, further fill in the picture. Clean and rare 78s were remastered by Stereophonic. Katsaros has never sounded better than on this LP, pressed at Smashed Plastic in heavy black or red vinyl, with extensive notes and lyrics.

credits

released October 11, 2024

Compilation Produced by Gordon Ashworth, Tony Klein, Konstantinos Kopanitsanos, Stavros Kourousis & Cyrus Moussavi.

Restoration and Mastering by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Sound.

Notes and 78 RPM sources provided by Stavros Kourousis & Konstantinos Kopanitsanos.

Lyric and note translation by Tony Klein.

Design by Gordon Ashworth.

For Mississippi Records: Maria Barrios, Adam Holofcener, Sam Wenc.

Co-released by Mississippi Records (MRI-204) & Olvido Records (OLV-011) in 2024.

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Mississippi Records New York, New York

Excavating the future.

Vital but often overlooked music made accessible through quality and affordable records and tapes, with respect to artists and their vision.

Mississippi Records was dreamt up roughly 22 years ago on Mississippi Ave in Portland OR and currently lives in Philly and New York. ... more

mississippirecords.net

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