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40 albums · 1936–2025

The bouzouki, the sound of rebetiko and laïko

· 1 min read · by 1001 Albums

Four men in suits with bouzoukis and a baglamas, the Piraeus quartet of the 1930s
A man seated under trees in Athens playing a bouzoukiBouzoukis, a tzouras and a baglamas in a museum case
The Piraeus quartet about 1934: Stratos Pagioumtzis, Anestis Delias, Markos Vamvakaris and Giorgos Batis. Photo: Unknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. · A bouzouki player in the streets of Athens, 2018. Photo: Rakoon, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Bouzoukis and their smaller cousins in the Museum of Greek Folk Instruments, Athens. Photo: Joan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The bouzouki is a long-necked lute with a pear-shaped body and metal strings, three courses in the old days and four since Manolis Chiotis added one in the 1950s. It is the sound of rebetiko, the urban song of Piraeus and Athens, and of the laïko that grew out of it.

The list has Markos Vamvakaris's Piraeus recordings from 1932, Vassilis Tsitsanis before and after the war, Roza Eskenazi and Sotiria Bellou, Chiotis, Stelios Kazantzidis, Mikis Theodorakis's Zorba, Haris Alexiou's rebetika of 1975, and the rebetiko of today with Babis Goles and Agathonas Iakovidis.

The list has 40 records from 1936 to 2025. Most of the old recordings come as anthologies, dated here by the years they were made. About 39 hours of music, 4 days of a few records each.

By genre

World 99%Other 1%
  • World 99%
  • Other 1%

The genres named most: bouzouki, world, rebetiko, laïko, film score.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: Greece 40. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1930s

The 1940s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Instruments first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.

29 albums · 1976–2024

The kora of Mali, the harp-lute of the jeli

· 1 min read

The kora is the harp-lute of the jeli, the griots of Mali, Guinea, Senegal and the Gambia: 21 strings over a large calabash covered in cowhide, played with the thumbs and forefingers of both hands.

World 89%Blues 3%Classical 3%Other 5%
  • World 89%
  • Blues 3%
  • Classical 3%
  • Other 5%

Read and see the list