Os Megatons - Misirlou (Surf Version)

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From '' Os Megatons ''
Released: 1964

Tracklist
A1 Vôo Do Besouro
A2 Infinito
A3 Lawman
A4 Aloha-Oe
A5 Adios
A6 Torture
B1 Balada Do Homem Sem Rumo
B2 Misirlou
B3 La Leyenda Del Beso
B4 Gunslinger
B5 Temptation
B6 Scheherazade

O grupo instrumental Os Megatons foi formado por Joe Primo (ex-Jet Blacks) em São Paulo, na década de 60.
Era composto por cinco integrantes, sendo: Renato (guitarra), Joe Primo (guitarra/vocal), Luiz Moreschi (guitarra 12 cordas/vocal), Arnaldo Bozzo (contrabaixo) e Edgard (bateria).

© 2014 DGD RECORDS [dist. Tratore]

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"Misirlou" (Greek: Μισιρλού / Turkish: Mısırlı 'Egyptian' / Arabic: مصر‎ Miṣr 'Egypt') is a folk song from the Eastern Mediterranean region, with origins in the Ottoman Empire.
The original author of the song is not known, but Arabic, Greek and Jewish musicians were playing it by the 1920s.
The earliest known recording of the song is a 1927 Greek rebetiko/tsifteteli composition influenced by Middle Eastern music.
There are also Arabic belly dancing, Armenian, Persian, Indian and Turkish versions of the song.
This song was popular from the 1920s onwards in the Arab American, Armenian American and Greek American communities who settled in the United States.

The song was a hit in 1946 for Jan August, an American pianist and xylophonist nicknamed "the one-man piano duet".
It gained worldwide popularity through Dick Dale's 1962 American surf rock version, originally titled "Miserlou", which popularized the song in Western popular culture; Dale's version was influenced by an earlier Arabic folk version played with an oud.

Various versions have since been recorded, mostly based on Dale's version, including other surf and rock versions by bands such as the Beach Boys, the Ventures, Consider the Source, and the Trashmen, 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 when director Quentin Tarantino used it in his 1994 film Pulp Fiction, and again when it was sampled in the Black Eyed Peas' song "Pump It" (2006).

Versions

In 1941, Nick Roubanis, a Greek-American music instructor, released a jazz instrumental arrangement of the song, crediting himself as the composer. Since his claim was never legally challenged, he is still officially credited as the composer today worldwide, except in Greece where credit is given to either Roubanis or Patrinos. Subsequently, Chaim Tauber, Fred Wise and Milton Leeds wrote English lyrics to the song.
Roubanis is also credited with fine-tuning the key and the melody, giving it the Oriental sound that it is associated with today. The song soon became an "exotica" standard among the light swing (lounge) bands of the day.

Harry James 1941

Jan August 1946

Dick Dale 1962

Dick Dale's "Misirlou" (1962), a surf rock cover version. It was responsible for popularizing the song in Western popular culture.

In 1962, Dick Dale rearranged the song as a solo instrumental rock guitar piece. During a performance, Dale was bet by a young fan that he could not play a song on only one string of his guitar. Dale's father and uncles were Lebanese-American musicians, and Dale remembered seeing his uncle play "Misirlou" on one string of the oud. He vastly increased the song's tempo to make it into rock and roll. It was Dale's surf rock version that introduced "Misirlou" to a wider audience in the U.S.

The Beach Boys 1963

The earliest known recording of the song was by the rebetiko musician Theodotos ("Tetos") Demetriades (Greek: Θεόδοτος ("Τέτος") Δημητριάδης) in 1927.
Demetriades, an Ottoman Greek, was born in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, in 1897, and he resided there until he moved to the United States in 1921, during a period when most of the Greek speaking population fled the emerging Turkish state.
It is likely that he was familiar with the song as a folk song before he moved to the United States.
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 named the song "Misirlou" in his original 1927 Columbia recording, which is a Greek assimilated borrowing of the regional pronunciation of "Egyptian" in Turkish ("Mısırlı"), as opposed to the corresponding word for "Egyptian" in Greek, which is Αιγύπτιοι.

The rebetiko version of the song was intended for a Greek tsifteteli dance, at a slower tempo and a different key than the Oriental 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 City in 1931 as well.