Spyros Efstathiou was a noted musician who emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War as a respected bouzouki player and, on occasion, second voice on some songs – like this one – that straddled late rebetiko and the early stages of laiko.
In fact, he and his brother Mitsos (Dimitiris) were both singers and bouzouki players of some fame in the post-war period. (Mitsos, the older of the two, was also a composer.)
Spryos Efstathiou was born in 1928 in the Kissifia region of Athens. In the immediate post-war years, when recording resumed and rebetiko started to go upscale, he established himself as a player on the main stages in Athens, performing alongside such greats as Dimitris Gogos, Kaiti Grey and Stelios Kazantzides.
He wound up splitting his time between Athens and the U.S. – living mostly in the U.S. but playing regularly on both sides of the Atlantic. He died in Arizona in 2010.
The boyfriend, the lament of a man who has lost his love, was written by Giannis Papaioannou. Bellou and Efstathiou recorded it in 1950, with Papaioannou on bouzouki.
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