Manos Hatzidakis gives his historic lecture on rebetiko
Tweet«Well, I don't think that this snobbishness regarding the rebetiko song can stand in our way of appreciating its worth and loving it for the truth and the power it contains. These songs are familiar and intimate to us in so many ways that nothing comes even remotely close to them» These are the words Manos Hatzidakis used to give to the rebetiko song the recognition it deserved.
His career reflects the social reality of Greece at the time Manos Hatzidakis took his first professional steps: porter, ice cream vendor, photo shop employee, and nurse's assistant. In 1961 Manos Hatzidakis won the Oscar for best original song for "Children of Piraeus," and the spotlight falls on him. In 1972 he founded the music theater-cafe "Polytropo" and in 1989 the "Orchestra of Colors."
His ideological identity for many remains a puzzle, so let's trust his own words: "I am a democrat, a bourgeois, a humanist, and a revisionist of the right. I have never been an anti-communist. I also contain the left. But the left doesn't contain me."