Stavros Tzouanakos emerged from the late years of the classic rebetiko era and, between 1948 and 1964 produced, as a composer, bouzouki player or singer, more than 100 rebetiko and Greek folk songs.
He was one of the most expressive singers of the times, a smooth tenor voice with a distinctive vibrato, and dips and breaks that added emotion to the songs he wrote and sang.
Tzouanakos was born in 1925 into a poor family in Piraeus. He showed an early affinity for music, but didn’t receive his first instrument – a guitar – until he was in his teens. He taught himself to play it and, later, the bouzouki.
By 1942, he was playing in taverns and clubs in Piraeus, while working days as a plumber. In the post-war years, he was taken under the wing of Manolis Hiotis, and in 1948 he cut his first record with two songs that he had written. He sang and played bouzouki on both recordings.
Tzouanakos quickly gained success and for the next decade appeared alongside a number of the most prominent singers and players at clubs throughout Athens. He also made his first trip to America in 1954 and decided to emigrate there in 1958. He found success on American stages, too, and continued to perform throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1974 at the age of 49.
Out of his many songs, I’ve chosen This night that passed for a couple of reasons. He wrote the song and plays bouzouki on the 1954 recording. And he sings with a then-young Poly Panou, who was in the early stages of a career that lasted for many years and made her one of Greece’s most-loved singers.
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