#51: An Epirotic Odyssey
Imagine there\u2019s a place where music exists as it was first created, thousands and thousands of years ago, a place where song and dance still glued communities together across generations. That place exists: Epirus, a little pocket of northwestern Greece on the border with Albania. There, in scattered mountain villages, people still practice a musical tradition that predates Homer. In his new book, Lament from Epirus, the obsessive record collector\u2014and Grammy-winning producer and musicologist\u2014Christopher King goes on an odyssey to uncover Europe's oldest surviving folk music, and spins us some rare 78s.
Go beyond the episode:
- Episode page, with R. Crumb\u2019s original illustrations
- Christopher King\u2019s Lament from Epirus
- Buy LPs, CDs, or MP3s of Chris\u2019s Epirotic collections, from Five Days Married and Other Laments to Why the Mountains Are Black
- Read Christopher King\u2019s Paris Review essay, \u201cTalk About Beauties,\u201d about the lost recordings of Alexis Zoumbas
- Listen to A Lament for Epirus (1926\u20131928) by Alexis Zoumbas on Spotify
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