Yiannis Papaioannou was one of the younger generation of rebetiko musicians in the classic era — like Chiotis, Tsitsanis and a handful of others — who carried the music into the post-war years and was instrumental in the way it changed.
He was born in Asia Minor in 1913 and moved with his family to Greece as part of the Greek-Turkish population exchange in 1922. He first performed on stage in 1933, launching a career that lasted until he died in a car accident in 1972. During his almost 40-year career, he performed alongside all of the major rebetiko and laiko performers.
He is credited with writing more than 800 songs, and he emerged as one of the leading bouzouki virtuosos. Famously, he claimed to have dissuaded the dictator Metaxas from banning rebetiko altogether in the late 1930s by promising the rebetes would only write love songs.
During his years as a laiko star he frequently collaborated and performed with Vassilis Tsitsanis. When I See Your Two Eyes is an early piece (1937) with all the simplicity of classic pre-war rebetiko.
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