The Greek gene...

I can't prove there's a Greek gene among the thousands of known human genes. Not chemically anyways. There may be an allele that could be very similar among us Greeks. This is the gene that, at the sound of pure rebetiko bouzouki makes you weep. Wakes up your 'free child' (Eric Berne's TA term) and you forget you need to still behave properly out of respect for your social status.

What's wrong with me, you might think... well, almost 40 years after I left the fatherland and as I thought my brain had wiped away those musical sentiments for good, there comes a friend and gives me some extremely rare recordings of two of the most divine godfathers of bouzouki music : Manos Hatzidakis and Yorgos Zabetas. What followed inside the loft that keeps me going during home stays, you just don't wanna know. Seriously...

I just wanted to share one short recording from that session that was produced for ERT Radio 3, during Christmas, many years ago.  The particular song by Hatzidakis, "let's go for a walk to the moon", was originally sung by Nana Mouskouri, and became an instant hit in the 60ies. It was the times when Nana could still sing properly, right before she came to Paris to become a castrate. Zabetas, one of the best rebetes ever made is being interviewed by Hatzidakis in that recording session. Hatzidakis 'pushes' Zabetas to play and sing the 'roots'... rebetika songs from the 20ies and 30ies. Zabetas does that with respect and discipline, but in this particular song, he tells Hatzidakis that he'd also like to play "the moon". He does start to do so in his bouzouki and Hatzidakis feels obliged to accompany him on the piano. Pure bouzouki magic. Enjoy!