Anestis Delias

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Anestis Delias (1912 to 31 July 1944) was a Greek bouzouki player, composer and rebetiko singer. He was born in Smyrna, on the coast of Anatolia, into a musical family. In 1922, at the age of ten, he fled with his pregnant mother and his little sister to Piraeus. His father stayed behind and was killed in the destruction of the city. The family settled in Drapetsona, a refugee district. As the only son he took all sorts of jobs to support his family. Around 1930 he worked in a taverna, where he got to know bouzouki players such as Markos Vamvakaris.

Music and breakthrough

Around 1933, with Yiorgos Batis, Stratos Pagioumtzis and Vamvakaris, he formed the first professional rebetiko ensemble, the Famous Quartet of Piraeus, of which he was the youngest. Their recordings are carried by bouzouki and baglamas and have a distinctly oriental stamp in mode and language, brought by the Anatolian refugees. From 1935 Delias released songs under his own name, ten in all up to 1937. After that the censorship of the Metaxas regime intervened against rebetika. In 1938 his recordings stopped. He had become addicted to heroin, was exiled to the island of Ios and died in 1944, poor and weakened.

Influence

After his death he fell into oblivion for decades. Only the rebetiko revival from the 1960s brought him back. Markos Vamvakaris called him an angel in the rubbish. Delias stands for the raw urban music of the Greek refugees.

Listening