Tetos Demetriades

Tetos Demetriades

Genres: palia ellinika tragoudia, Greek, greece

Similar artists via Last.fm

Tetos Dimitriadis Kemany Minas Tetos Demetriadis Markos Sifnios Stepan & Haigaz

About Tetos Demetriades

Theodotos ("Tetos") Demetriades (Greek: Θεόδοτος ("Τέτος") Δημητριάδης) was an Ottoman Greek rebetiko musician, born in Istanbul/Constantinople, Ottoman Empire, 4 December, 1897, he died 28 November 1971 in Bergen, New Jersey, USA. He moved to the United States in 1921, toward the end of the Turkish–Greek conflict during the last phase of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and establishment of modern Turkey. In 1927 he recorded an early version of the song Miserlou, Misirlou. It's likely that he was familiar with the song, as a folk song, before he moved to the United States. "Misirlou" (Greek: Μισιρλού < Turkish: Mısırlı 'Egyptian' < Arabic: مصر‎‎ Miṣr 'Egypt') is a traditional song from the Eastern Mediterranean region. The earliest recordings of the song are a 1919 Egyptian composition called Bint Misr and a 1927 Greek rebetiko composition influenced by Middle-Eastern music. There are also traditional Arabic (belly dancing), Jewish (klezmer), Armenian, Persian and Turkish versions of the song. Misirlou (Μισιρλού) is the feminine form of Misirlis (Μισιρλής) which comes from the Turkish word Mısırlı, which is formed by combining Mısır ("Egypt" in Turkish, borrowed from Arabic) with the Turkish -lı suffix, literally meaning "Egyptian". While the exact folk origin of the song is not well established, it's somewhere in either Egypt or Asia Minor. The earliest known recording of the song is uncertain. The Egyptian musician Sayed Darwish reportedly recorded an early version of the song as "Bint Misr" in 1919, under the Mechian label. "Bint Misr" means "Egyptian Girl" in Arabic. A better known early recording of the song was by the rebetiko musician, Tetos Demetriades. Later, in 1930, Michalis Patrinos, another Ottoman Greek from Izmir, Ottoman Empire, and his rebetiko band recorded a cover version in Athens, Greece. As with almost all early rebetika songs (a style that originated with the Greek refugees from Asia Minor in Turkey), the song's actual composer has never been identified, and its ownership rested with the band leader. Demetriades, who lived in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, until he moved to the United States in 1921 at the age of 23, named the song "Misirlou" in his original 1927 Columbia label, which is a regional pronunciation of "Egyptian" in Turkish ("Mısırlı"), as opposed to the corresponding word for "Egyptian" in Greek, which is Αιγύπτιοι (Aigyptioi). Initially, the song was composed as a Greek tsifteteli dance, in the rebetiko style of music, at a slower tempo and a different key than the orientalized performances that most are familiar with today. This was the style of recording by Michalis Patrinos in Greece, circa 1930, which was circulated in the United States by the Orthophonic label; another recording was made by Patrinos in New York in 1931 as well. The song's oriental melody has been so popular for so long that many people, from Morocco to Iraq, claim it to be a folk song from their own country. In fact, in the realm of Middle Eastern music, the song is a very simplistic one, since it is little more than going up and down the Hijaz Kar or double harmonic scale (E-F-G#-A-B-C-D#). The song gained worldwide popularity through Dick Dale's 1962 American surf rock version, originally titled "Miserlou", which popularized the song in Western popular culture. Various versions have since been recorded, including other surf and rock versions by bands such as The Beach Boys, The Ventures, and Consider the Source as well as international orchestral easy listening (exotica) versions by musicians such as Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman. Dale's surf rock version later gained renewed popularity through its use in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction and again through its sampling in The Black Eyed Peas song "Pump It" (2006) and Mad Men: "The Jet Set" (2008). A cover of Dale's surf rock version was included on the Guitar Hero II video game released in 2006.

Taken from Last.fm

1,392 listeners  ·  4,701 plays via Last.fm