Vangelis Papazoglou — no relation to the late 20th century superstar Nikos Papazoglou — wrote some of the best-known rebetiko songs of the classic period, drawing on both the Piraeus rebetiko style and the Asia Minor-influenced Smyrneika style.
He was born near Smyrna in what is now Turkey, and learned music there before arriving in Greece on the heels of the destruction of Smyrna.
Although he sang and played, he never recorded his own songs but plenty of other people did (and still do).
Papazoglou was driven by a strong moral code: when the Metaxas dictatorship banned “eastern sounding” and “drug” music and required composers to submit their lyrics to censors for approval, he stopped writing songs. After the Nazis occupied Athens, he refused to play in public.
He died during the occupation of TB at the age of 47. Here’s his song The Smuggler, recorded by Stellakis Perpiniadis in 1934.
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