Anestis Delias, one of my favourite rebetiko composers, was one of the tragic figures of the classic era of rebetiko (roughly 1920-1940).
He was a young, talented singer, player and songwriter, who recorded with Vamvakaris and the Famous Quartet of Piraeus and others, but he became addicted to heroin.
Delias as born in Smyrna in the first decade of the the 20th Century into a musical family. The family moved to Piraeus as part of the Greek-Turkish population exchange in the 1920s and by the 1930s Delia was working odd jobs, one of which was in a taverna where he met Markos Vamvakaris and other rebetiko musicians. Vamvakaris is said to have convinced him to switch from guitar to bouzouki, and then made Delia the youngest member of the Famous Quartet of Piraeus.
Delia began recording his own songs in 1935 and between then and 1938, he recorded 10 titles, all of which are now classics. His last recording was in 1938. In 1944, weakened by his addiction, he was one of the tens of thousands of Athenians who starved to death during the Nazi occupation. He was only 32.
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