This recording was made on April 25, 1927, in New York by Tetos Demetriades, a key figure in the Greek-American discographic scene. On the record label, he appears under the pseudonym Takis Nikolaou—one of several aliases he used. The recording includes one of the songs from the Greek-language discography that refer to hashish, a category commonly referred to as hasiklidika (hashish songs).

Regarding Indian hemp, hashish, and this category of songs, Panagiotis Kounadis notes (2010, 9: 17–19):

“Indian hemp, the plant from which hashish is produced—along with a wide range of other products (plant fibers, ropes, paper, medicinal products, lamp oil, fabric for clothing and ship sails, etc.)—was widely and freely cultivated throughout Greece from the mid-19th century until 1920.

Its cultivation became systematically organized from 1880 onward. In parts of Arcadia, annual production reached 40,000–50,000 okades of hashish (roughly 50–65 metric tons). Similar conditions prevailed in Argolis, Corinthia, Elis, and later in Macedonia and Crete.

At the same time—or perhaps even earlier—it was also cultivated more extensively and intensively by farmers in Western Asia Minor, inland Smyrna, Bursa, Afyon Karahisar, and elsewhere. It was a familiar crop to Greek farmers, many of whom lived solely off its exploitation.

Its well-known euphoric properties—when used moderately—and its many beneficial medicinal qualities made it highly popular among broad social strata across both liberated and unliberated Greece. Its use was more widespread among the Muslim populations of the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East, Egypt, etc., partly due to religious prohibitions against alcohol in those regions.

A range of natural euphoric substances—some still considered such—whose use was never prohibited in Greece, such as tobacco, alcohol, coffee, etc., found their way into the themes of rebetiko and other genres. These songs are still regarded as important elements of urban folklore, and their creators were never criticized for recording, promoting, or using such themes.

In this environment of free cultivation, distribution, and use of hashish—with no restrictions or prohibitions and considered natural and legal—the first rebetiko songs referencing it were created.

From 1850 to 1922, songs—either traditional or of anonymous creation—appeared that documented the phenomenon of hashish use and the negative effects of its abuse. […]

The earliest songs with such themes naturally emerged in the major cities of Asia Minor with Greek populations, such as Smyrna and Constantinople. From there, they spread through touring music troupes to liberated Greece between 1875 and 1922, as well as among Greek immigrants in America, where many of them were recorded for the first time.

Regarding Greek-language songs that refer to addictive substances—legal and illegal—Panagiotis Kounadis notes (2008: 13):

“We’re talking about a corpus of over two thousand songs, written and performed over more than a hundred years in places where Greeks have lived and moved.

For many years, it was believed—and still is by many—that songs referencing prohibited substances (banned under the 1932 and 1936 laws), like hashish, heroin, and cocaine, were only found in the rebetiko songs that dominated the interwar period.

But now that we have a more complete picture of Greek discography from the era of ‘free creation,’ i.e., before the preventive censorship of the 4th of August dictatorship, we know that a significant number of creators and performers from operetta, revue, and light song genres also contributed to and presented works with such themes. A particularly noteworthy observation is that most of these songs praised the use of these substances—legal or not—which was not always the case in rebetiko.

Research into the popular music themes of other countries shows that Greek songs about substances—especially banned ones—constitute the richest corpus of urban folklore worldwide.”

Of particular interest is the observation made by Panagiotis Kounadis regarding the appearance of musical phrases from the song in earlier Greek-language recordings. Commenting on the song “To chasisi”, he notes (2010, 3:42):"Musical phrases from 'To chasisi' appear in 'Otan se vlepo ki erchesai', as well as in the song 'To gelekaki', composed by Spyros Ollandezos."

The first song, “To chasisi”, appears in various versions throughout the discography and under alternate titles, such as “De mou lete to chasisi pou pouliete”, “Mparmpagiannis”, and “I ntamira”. The earliest known recording likely took place in America around 1920 (for more information on the song, see here).

“To Gelekaki,” composed by Spyros Ollandezos with lyrics by Giannis Theodoridis, appears to have been recorded for the first time in 1932. By 1953, it had been recorded seven more times, totaling nine versions. This number of recordings clearly reflects the song's popularity and partially explains its inclusion in the Sephardic repertoire (for more on “To Gelekaki” and its variations in the Sephardic repertoire, see here).