He tried to imitate that style on his guitar, but vastly increased the song's tempo to make it into rock'n'roll, and the result was the famous Dick Dale "Miserlou". Later that night, he remembered seeing his uncle play "Misirlou" on one string (actually a double string) of the oud. During a performance, Dale was bet by a young fan that he could not play a song on only one string of his guitar. Although they were Arab, they, like other performers, played the music of all the main cultures which made up the nightclub patrons-that included Greek music and Misirlou. Dale's father and uncles were Lebanese-American musicians who were a part of the aforementioned ethnic nightclub scene. The song was rearranged as a solo instrumental guitar piece by Dick Dale in 1962. It became known to the Armenian-Americans as the "Snake Dance" due to its sinuous foot movements. This was not unusual as there were actually many new, American-made, "folk" songs and dances in this era. Eventually the Misirlou song and dance were introduced into this scene, and to the Armenian-American and Arab-American communities. The musicians played belly-dance music to accompany the dancers and also ethnic folk music to which the club's patrons, also usually Greeks, Armenians, and Arabs, would dance their traditional line dances. Such restaurants or clubs, usually owned by Greeks, featured near-eastern style music played by Greeks, Armenians, and Arabs, and often belly dancers. The dance is also performed to instrumental versions of Never on Sunday by Manos Hadjidakis.Īt the time, the 1940s and 1950s, there was a thriving Near-Eastern nightclub scene in New York and New England. Thereafter, this new dance, which had been created by putting the Syrtos Kritikos to the slower Misirlou music, was known as "Misirlou" and spread among the Greek-American community, as well as among non-Greek U.S. The dance was first performed at a program to honor America's allies of World War II at Stephen Foster Memorial Hall in Pittsburgh on March 6, 1945. Because Pittsburgh's Greek-American community did not know Cretan music, Pat Mandros Kazalas, a music student, suggested the tune Misirlou, although slower, might fit the dance. She contacted Mercine Nesotas, who taught several Greek dances, including Syrtos Haniotikos (from Crete), which she called Kritikos, but for which they had no music. Dorsch to organize an international dance group at Duquesne University to honor America's World War II allies. In 1945, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, women's musical organization asked Professor Brunhilde E. In 1944 maestro Clovis el-Hajj, an Arabic Lebanese musician, performed this song and called it "amal." This is the only Arabic version of this song. The song soon became an "exotica" standard among the light swing (lounge) bands of the day. Roubanis is also credited with fine- tuning the key and the melody, giving it the oriental sound that it is associated with today. Since his claim was never legally challenged, he is still officially credited as the composer today worldwide, except in Greece where credit is variably given to either Roubanis or Patrinos. In 1941, Nick Roubanis, a Greek-American music instructor, released a jazz instrumental arrangement of the song, crediting himself as the composer. This was the style of the first known recording by Michalis Patrinos in Greece, circa 1930 (which was circulated in the United States by Titos Dimitriadis' Orthophonic label) a second recording was made by Patrinos in New York, in 1931. Initially, the song was composed as a Greek zeibekiko 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. The Greek word Misirlou refers specifically to a Muslim Egyptian woman (as opposed to a Christian Egyptiotissa) thus this song refers to a cross-faith, cross-race, relationship, a risqué subject at its time. Patrinos, being originally a Smyrniot (today İzmir, Turkey), pronounced the song's title, similar to the Turkish pronunciation. The melody was most likely composed collaboratively by the group, as was often the case at the time the initial lyrics were almost certainly written by Patrinos himself. As with almost all early rebetika songs (a style that originated with the Greek refugees from Turkey), the song's actual composer has never been identified, and its ownership rested with the band leader. The song was first performed by the Michalis Patrinos rebetiko band in Athens, Greece in 1927.
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