Stelios Chrysinis was important to rebetiko and Greek popular music for almost three decades. He was an instrumentalist (largely on guitar), a composer of rebetiko and laika, and a recording executive who worked with the most prominent musicians of his day.
Chrysinis was born in Piraeus in 1916. Shortly after birth, he began to go blind, an affliction that also hit his younger brother, Panagiotis. Their parents threw them into music lessons and the brothers learned how to play everything from violin to bouzouki. By the early ‘30s, they were accompanying silent films and their abilities brought them to the attention of band leaders and taverns in Piraeus and Athens.
Stelios was quickly drawn to rebetiko: his first recorded composition was this song from 1934, sung by Stelios Perpiniadis. Chrysinis is credited with 750 recordings during his lifetime as composer or player, and he worked with dozens of young musicians after he became a recording company director in the early 1950s, discovering and recording many young singers. (He is credited, for instance, with helping young Stelios Kazantzidis, still one of the best-loved Greek singers). Throughout he continued to compose, either creating songs himself, or working with others to develop their musical ideas. He died in 1970.
Leave a Reply