CORFU BOOKS

THREE ESSENTIAL BOOKS FOR PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT CORFU

“CORFU BLUES” by JIM POTTS (Ars Interpres)

“Perfectly captures the colour of the Greek islands and their people." (Proper Home Greece).

“A positive contribution towards an understanding of modern Greece” (Athens News).

“THE CAT OF PORTOVECCHIO, CORFU TALES”,
MARIA STRANI-POTTS (Brandl & Schlesinger)

“Read it, it'll change your life and the way you love (and live) the Corfu idyll.” (ISLAND)

“A relentless and seductive intelligence… never less than provocative. A pleasure to read and, even for Corfiots, an education” (The Anglo-Hellenic Review)

“TO POULIMA TIS PANOREAS”, MARIA STRANI-POTTS, CorfuBooks.com.
“An absolute must-read” (ISLAND).

“Πρόκειται πραγματικά για ένα λογοτέχνημα-ράπισμα και ταυτόχρονα μια αφοπλιστική περιγραφή του χώρου που ζούμε, ποιότητες που δίνουν στο βιβλίο τον χαρακτήρα μανιφέστου, το οποίο μπορεί να συνοψιστεί στο «τέρμα τα λόγια, ώρα για δράση” (Dr. Kostas Kardamis).

REBETIKO and GENERAL SCOBIE

REBETIKO AND GENERAL SCOBIE A friend from the Ionian University Music Department, brought to my attention the order apparently given in Athens to Greek Radio by the British Military Authority (under General Scobie). It started me thinking about why the British Military might have wanted to promote rebetiko music. These are my questions, thoughts and notes to date. I welcome comments and further information (corfubooks at hotmail dot com). Is it possible to find the original document or order? In late 1944-early 1945 (after “Ta Dekemvriana”): the HQ of the British Forces Military Authority, under General Scobie, sent an order/instruction strongly encouraging Greek State Radio to broadcast and disseminate rebetiko music, little known at that time to the bourgeoisie of Greece (sources: Yannis Konstantinidis, Alekos Xenos, George Leotsakos- see G. Leotsakos, “Alekos Xenos” in “Eptanisiaka Fylla” XXV/3-4, Fall-Winter 2005). It seems unlikely that such an order would have been issued before the truce of 11 January, 1945 or until after the Varkiza agreement was signed on 12 February 1945, but that is my own speculation. Nikos Politis has written that “after the war there has been a small interval of less than one year, where censorship was forgotten, but immediately thereafter it came back.” (“Censorship in Rebetiko, 1937 onwards”, Hydra Rebetiko Conference, October 2005). Censorship was reimposed in 1947, according to Ed Emery. If it's true that the British Military encouraged the rebetiko, thequestion is WHY? What was their motive? Was it: a) The influence of the post-war mood in Britain (away from Churchill and the Conservatives, towards the Labour Party- election victory under Attlee, July 1945, breaking down class barriers, new solidarity, new society, health service, welfare state, employment); b) The fact that they liked rebetiko music; c) They wanted (indirectly) to win the hearts and minds of alienated Greeks. d) The fact that no rebetiko recordings were made in Greece during the period of Axis Occupation, 1941-1944, when the Germans promoted and encouraged light music, tangos and waltzes (Gail Holst-Warhaft, “World Music and the Orientalizing of Rebetika”). e) That there had been censorship of rebetiko songs during the Metaxas dictatorship f) That the British perhaps wanted to encourage a spirit of freedom of expression (and of the press) after the censorship of the Metaxas dictatorship and the German Occupation? But unlikely at this stage, while EAM-ELAS still a serious threat? The early issues of the Anglo-Helleniki Epitheorisi carried articles about the need for a free press. Soon there would be articles and lectures on Theophilos; popular, “primitive” and naïve art became fashionable (Zographos, Tsarouchis, as well as Karaghiozis shadow-theatre and the memoirs of General Makriyannis). Right-wing conservatives “suspected subversion in the fuss about popular art and ‘popular Greek humanity’"(Sikelianos on Theophilos in 1947)”. The Marxist movement was “suspicious of any tendency which could seem hostile to technical civilisation and resolutely opposed to populism” (Nicos Hadjinicolaou introduction to ‘Four painters of 20th century Greece’, Wildenstein, 1975). It was not just the bourgeoisie that was unfamiliar with or disapproved of rebetiko. Many Communists were opposed to it too (cf Klisidis, “Aspects of Rebetiko”, cited by Daniel Koglin). Stathis Gauntlett, in “Rebetika, Carmina Graeciae Recentioris” ( a modified version of his Oxford DPhil thesis To Rebetiko Tragoudi, March 1978) writes (p. 195, note 2) about politically motivated denunciation of the genre in Rizospastis in the mid-forties and thirty years later, in March and April 1976: “The ‘Rebetiko’ is now decried as part of an imperialist plot to obliterate the memory of the heroic Resistance and Civil War.” Gauntlett refers to D.Liatsos, Oi prosfiges tis Mikrasias kai to rebetiko tragoudi, Athens 1982, pp. 54-8. Alekos Xenos, who was in EAM-ELAS and KKE, wrote in 1947, "The evil caused by the sickly atmosphere of the drug-related, pornographic rebetiko songs", which had been "made out of melodic bits and pieces left behind by the Turkish conqueror" and were "sung amongst those strata the pauperizaing economic policy of capitalism had reduced to utmost poverty"... (from a letter in Rizospastis, February 4, 1947, quoted by Daniel Koglin in “Marginality-A Key Concept to Understanding the Resurgence of Rebetiko in Turkey”, www.music.ucsb.edu/projects/musicandpolitics/archive/2008-1/koglin.pdf At that period (from 1945) Communist Party ideologists and intellectuals were largely negative about the rebetiko and the “mangas”, and argued that the music undermined and sapped the revolutionary strength and will of the people, and was unsuitable for political prisoners or for leftists sent into internal exile. It was considered music which could have a bad psychological effect, with its elements of “weariness, escapism and fatalism” (G. Giannaris, p. 133). They favoured the use of indigenous, traditional Greek folk songs (ta demotika) and partisan or guerrilla (antartika) songs as an educational means to further the national liberation struggle and to build solidarity, group revolutionary consciousness (as well as the use of optimistic, international Communist and Russian revolutionary songs). They certainly insisted on the exclusion of narcotics-related and mangas songs from the repertoire. See Panagis Panagiotopulos’ chapter in “Rebetes kai Rebetiko Tragoudi”, 1996. Which is not to say that some rebetiko songs did not deal with political topics on occasion. Nearchos Georgiadis cites examples of several songs about the death of Aris Velouchiotis in 1945. “Rebetika was also attacked by the Communist Party, for instance by Nikos Zachariades, who described it as the music ‘of knife-fights and decadence’”, Ed Emery, Introduction to “Songs of the Greek Underworld, The Rebetiko Tradition” by Elias Petropoulos, 2000. On the other hand, Theodorakis claims that General Serafis “was crazy about rebetika”, and Theodorakis himself and the other inmates sang rebetika at Ikaria and in Makronissos (Interview with Vassilis Vassilikos, Euros, no 5-6, Sept-Dec 1993), cited by Emery. Elias Petropoulos writes (“Songs of the Greek Underworld"), “The Marxist viewpoint that sees the rebetes merely as lumpenproletarians is theoretical claptrap” and “In 1947 the official newspaper of the Greek Communist Party opened the first debate on the nature of rebetiko song. A constellation of Marxist reactionaries came together to condemn the ‘immoral’ songs of the hashish-smokers and the lumpenproletariat.” Proclamation of ELAS Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1943: “It asked every Greek to compile all the Resistance songs he knew, both lyrics and music, and send them as best he could to the nearest ELAS office”, George Giannaris, “Music and Social Change”, 1973. Greek music has always been plagued by identity politics, as Gail Holst-Warhaft observes. This suggests another alternative motive why the British Military might have sent the instruction to the Radio Station: g) Most Communist intellectuals disapproved of rebetiko and wanted to discredit it, so the British promoted it? Or h) Maybe rebetiko was considered a better "pacifying" option, since it was largely non-political, non-revolutionary and dealt with themes of love, jealousy, ‘erotic rapports’, wine, longing for home and for the mother, laments about poverty and social problems etc, less risky than a resurgence of political resistance songs, and ELAS-sanctioned themes? i) It was in the commercial interests of British-owned gramophone record companies operating in Athens, which would soon want to start up production again (in 1946). Incidentally, the hostility of many of the Communists and bourgeois elites towards the bouzouki as an instrument was as strong as the hostility towards rebetiko songs. It was seen as an instrument brought in with the Asia Minor refugees after 1922. It is interesting in this respect to read Archduke Ludwig Salvator’s comments (1887) on musical instruments played in the Ionian island of Paxos in the 1880s: „Fűr Musik haben die Paxiniotten wie alle Griechen Vorliebe. Violine und Mandoline sind die beiden Haupt-Instrumente. Letzterer ähnlich die Busukki, Lauto und Protolauto, und manche Guitarren, die man Taburá nennt. Diese Instrumente werden theils hier verfertigt, theils aus Corfu importiert; sie variiren in der Grösse von einander, gewöhnlich macht man sie in drei Grössen“ ("Paxos und Antipaxos", Wűrzburg and Vienna, 1887). The bouzouki seems to have been accepted as another instrument suitable for folk music. Nothing is as simple as it might seem! ----------- NB For Manos Hadjidakis' lecture of 31 January 1949 on the Rebetiko song, go to www.hadjidakis.gr/english/homeweb.htm , select Ergography, then Publications

Donovan Honoured as Pop-Folk Legend

Celtic Reverberations.

I was delighted to read on 18 January, 2009 that Donovan had been honoured with a medal by the French Government and made an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. One wonders if President Sarkozy’s wife, the singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, had anything to do with his nomination.
Madame Christine Albanel, French Minister of Culture, called Donovan "a living pop-folk legend, a genuine poet and true humanist."
That must have pleased Donovan, who has always been confident about the significance of his musical innovations and his contribution to the arts and society.
Receiving the medal, Donovan said: "I take it for all the work I've done over the years to bring poetry back to popular culture. To get an honour like this confirmed to me that it was successful, that my work was accepted on my terms, rather than becoming an entertainer. I wanted to be entertaining, but to bring to the world a sense of meaning again."
“I was a pioneer”, he told me once in Sydney; “the proof is that I was introduced and accepted and encouraged by Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Joan Baez. I left Society as an artist and a bohemian, only to find I became part of society as an artist. The arts have a great role to play in presenting the human condition. Leaving Society only put me in the centre of it… I’m accepted as a living historical part of British, Irish and Scottish Celtic music.”
Donovan may have been briefly compared to Bob Dylan in his early days, as both presented a folkie, protest-singer image and both played the harmonica on slings and wore caps, like their common idol, Woodie Guthrie. Donovan has written about the importance of other influences like Derroll Adams and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott (another Dylan influence) But beneath the folkie-image of both Donovan and Dylan, there was a wealth of blues, jazz and poetry.
On the blues side, Donovan was more influenced by the guitar-picking of Big Bill Broonzy and Blind Gary Davis. He liked acoustic country blues and jug-band music, as well as Cajun Blues. He wasn’t much influenced by electric Chess R ‘n’ B or Chuck Berry. To some extent he was influenced by the Bo Diddley (and Buddy Holly) sound and New Orleans swamp, the G-F chord progression which he believes came from the fiddle music of the Celts (from Brittany-Nova Scotia-New Orleans), and which was an important part of the Celtic-African Cajun mix.
The Celtic and French Celtic roots were major influences. From the age of 17, he told me, he became less of a protester and more of a promoter of cultural links by “becoming the most popular international singer-songwriter who presented the Celtic flavour”. There’s a lot of Celtic influence in English popular music too, he says. He feels very Celtic, and loves the special sound of Celtic voices, of actors and singers; the Celts were orators and literary and musical geniuses. He was born in Glasgow on 10 May, 1946. It wasn’t a far jump from Glasgow to Ireland. He lives in the south of Ireland, in County Cork.
He sees himself first and foremost as a poet. His father read him poetry from a very early age, Robert Service, W. H. Auden, the hobo poets, the Woodie Guthries and Jack Kerouacs of the literary scene of the twentieth century, but also the poetry of. noblemen, like Byron, Yeats, Keats, Shelley, Burns .Donovan was always interested in poetry: “Most of my songs are poems in a way”.

He was attracted to the Beatnik, Bohemian and folk scenes, the music of Bert Jansch, the Troubadour Club in Old Brompton Road, Les Cousins in Greek Street.

I asked him about one of my favourites of his songs, “Sunny Goodge Street”. He told me he used to go up to Goodge Street every weekend, aged 15-16, to the West End, from the provinces, from St. Albans, Hatfield, Welwyn Garden City. His family had moved south from Scotland in 1956. He would spend the day or weekend digging the sights, the blues, the folk music; he wasn’t performing then, except at parties, but he soon started hitch-hiking and busking on street corners in St. Ives (1963).

“Essentially I play harmonica. As far as song-writing is concerned, my philosophy is: Keep the Chords Simple, three chords will do.”

Yet Donovan was also influenced by Billie Holiday, the jazz of Miles Davis and Charlie Mingus and by classical music. “Classical music and jazz came together in Sunny Goodge Street”.

John Cameron, the Cambridge-educated classical composer and arranger, helped to put down on paper many of the sounds in Donovan’s head, writing arrangements for albums and singles like “Sunshine Superman” and “Jennifer Juniper”

“John heard a very British, Britten-like, influence in “Jennifer Juniper”, and he used the cor anglais, flutes and harpsichords. Very English!”
Back in 1965, one of my university friends (the poet, Michael Rosen) used to tease me for liking the wistfully romantic “Catch the Wind” (b/w “Why Do You Treat Me Like You Do?”). He’d thought I only liked the tough electric sounds of Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker. It was true that I loved their music more than anything, but few songs made me feel happier or freer when hitch-hiking down through Europe in the mid-sixties than Donovan’s “Colours”. Michael Rosen’s own favourites (Desert Island Discs, 6.8. 2006) included Big Bill Broonzy’s “Black, Brown and White” and Ewan McColl’s “Fourpence a Day”, I was to discover over forty years later.
Some critics have found his idealistic attitudes naïve and gullible. Donovan credits his mother with having taught him to express his thoughts “without concern for scorn” (Sleeve Notes, “Donovan, Troubadour”).
Donovan composed “Writer in the Sun” when in Greece with his old friend Gypsy Dave, when he was convinced that his career was over. Arranged by John Cameron, it was recorded in 1966. Perhaps that was his true swan-song, the moment which marked the end of his best work, if not his recording career. Over forty years later, I sit here in Corfu, sadly humming that poignant song:
“And here I sit, the retired writer in the sun,
The retired writer in the sun, and I'm
Blue, the retired writer in the sun”.

(Lyrics Copyright Donovan Leitch)

He has said that he was a big fan of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet and was re-reading Clea in Greece.

Perhaps he had Durrell in mind, too, as another 'retired' writer in the sun.

Whether Celtic, American or English in origin or influence, the best of Donovan’s songs continue to reverberate in the mind. It’s a pity about the artificial vibrato he adopted later. For me, the best of his recordings come from that magical period 1964-1966, from “Catch the Wind” to “Writer in the Sun”.
He fully deserved his French medal. The British have been slow to recognise and honour his achievements, but they have been fully documented by the man himself in “The Autobiography of Donovan: The Hurdy-Gurdy Man” (2005). Of all the 1960s survivors and “icons”, Donovan has managed to retain an aura of artistic integrity and noble idealism. I salute him; my enthusiasm for his early work has been vindicated by the bestowal of the French honour.

Snooks Eaglin, Remember Snooks

REMEMBER SNOOKS EAGLIN

"Remember Me"

Snooks Eaglin was born in New Orleans on January 21, 1936, and died there, aged 73, on February 18, 2009.

For me he will always be the young man in dark glasses, playing his guitar surrounded by children on the porch of a wooden shack, as in the photograph by Harry Oster used on early Storyville LPs. I only saw him perform live on one occasion, much later in his career.

If I had to pick an all-time favourite 45 rpm single, it would be “Country Boy” b/w  “Alberta”, on the Storyville label, recorded at a session in 1961.

When I first came to love those songs, they were two of the highlights on an amazing long-playing record. I thought I had discovered the greatest blues-singer and acoustic guitarist ever, a master of both the six-string and the twelve-string guitar.

But Snooks was not just a blues-singer. He could play pop music, New Orleans R ‘n’ B, flamenco (“Malaguena”), rock ‘n’ roll, country ( “A Thousand Miles Away From Home”), whatever took his fancy. He wouldn’t be type-cast; but at the time he was first being discovered, when he was around 32, he seemed to have brought folk-blues into the modern age.

I always thought of him as a cross between Ray Charles and Bob Dylan.

He could interpret Ray Charles’ “I Got a Woman” in as exciting a way as Ray himself, and his version of “That’s All Right” was just as driving as the original by Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup or the classic rockabilly version by Elvis..

At the end of the day, he will be remembered for “Alberta” (which Eric Clapton has covered in similarly sensitive style) and “I’m a Country Boy, Down in New Orleans”.

According to Harry Oster, Dick Allan, Associate Curator of the Archive of New Orleans Jazz, “suggested most of the lines during an informal session at the home of Snook’s parents”.

Thus are masterpieces born.

Listening to him sing “I went to the Mardi Gras”, it’s sad to think that there will be no more Mardi Gras for the hugely-talented Fird Eaglin, Jr., once so inadequately labelled as Blind Snooks Eaglin, New Orleans street singer.

Here's Snooks' version of "Well I had my fun"

The track we should all be playing in memory of Snooks Eaglin is the transcendental spiritual “Remember Me”, the last track on the 1964 Storyville LP, “Snooks Eaglin: Portrait in Blues Vol. 1”.

We will remember him.

An excellent discography can be found on www.wirz.de/music/eaglfrm.htm