Manolis Chrysafakis left behind a small but significant output of rebetiko songs from the 1930s and ’40s, reportedly only 30 recordings before the outbreak of WWII and less than a half-dozen when recording resumed after the war.
But among those recordings are some of the major songs of the classic era of rebetiko, sung by the leading voices of the day.
Chrysafakis, who played santouri, was another of the Smyrna-trained musician (and a relative of the wife of composer Vangelis Papazoglou). He arrived in Greece in 1923 and the first recording of one of his songs was made in 1932 in the early days of the Athens-based recording industry. His compositions, mainly in the Smyrneika style, were regularly released throughout the 1930s.
Despite the fall-off in recording activities in the 1940s, he continued to play santouri with rebetiko, laiko and folk groups up until the 1960s, and he served for 20 years as president of the Folk Musicians Union.
Yianni’s Cup, a song about a cheating craps player, was recorded by both Rita Abatsi and Rosa Eskenazi, the two leading female recording stars of the day, in 1934.
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