I’ve always loved this song. And Haroula is so beautiful — in that idiosyncratic way that Greek women are beautiful. She would play Anna Comnene in my film version of the life of the author of the Alexiad — one of history’s great patriolatric texts — η αγέρωχη αυτή Γραικιά — “that breezily proud Greek woman”.
I had always assumed and imagined Alexiou as being of Anatolian background, given her style and repertoire, but she’s actually an Arvanita from Thebes. There go stereotypes for ya.
She is, though, the great late twentieth-century heir of the Roza Eskenazi Café Aman type song tradition. Often and unfairly overlooked, under the crushing bulldozer of the undying rebetiko phenom’.
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Comment: nikobakos@gmail.com
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Jadde: from Bosnia to Bengal 
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