Guitarist, singer and composer Zacharias Kasimatis — the first voice you hear on the recording — played a small but important role in pre-war rebetiko.
Kasimatis was one of the great rebetiko singers of his time, but only recorded around 50 songs between 1929 and 1950. But he was the first to record songs that have become classics, including Of Aman and The Mangas of Votanikos.
He was born in Smyrna in the late 1890s, studied music there and played mandolin with a famous orchestra, Ta Politakia. During the destruction of Smyrna by Turkish troops, he was briefly captured but escaped and fled to Greece.
There, he switched from mandolin to guitar and began performing and then recording. His compositions were recorded by Georgia Mittakis, Kostas Roukounas and others. He didn’t record much after 1950, but continued playing with rebetiko and folk bands until his death in 1965.
This recording teams him with fellow Asia Minor refugee Antonis Dalgas in a song about a prison fight between two bullies.
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