I am well and truly stumped by Nota Kalelli. She performed as either the solo artist or second voice with some of the biggest singers of the classic rebetiko era, yet I can find no biographical information about her.
She recorded about a dozen songs, some with Markos Vamvakaris, Stratos Pagioumatzis and Stellakis Perpiniadis. Some of them, such as the Minor of the Tavern, are well-known in the repertoire.
But I can find only traces of the woman herself, either online or in the few books that I have. There is only a hint or two about who she may have been.
One hint is her nickname, Mytilinia. That suggests she comes from the island of Mytileni (Lesvos), where the Kalelis family was a well-known family of musicians. I found little information about them beyond one member – Lefteris – a bouzouki player with a locally famous string trio in the mid-1930s, just before Nota was recording in Athens.
Another hint is in the credits for her song My Sweet Marinella, recorded in 1939, and credited to Nota Kalleli and Pangiotis Kallelis. A search for Pangiotis Kallelis turns up nothing relevant, but the names suggest they may have been, at least at that time, husband and wife.
In the end, I have little more than the links to the songs, including They Told Me Not to Love You, written by Markos Vamvakaris and also recorded in 1939.
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