Giorgos Lafkas had a long and fruitful creative career that extended beyond rebetiko: some of his earliest works were great additions to the repertoire. While he is not as famous as other composers from that era, his songs are still being performed.
Lafkas was born in the Peloponnese in 1924. He moved to Athens in the early 1940s to study, but was won over by music. He began singing and playing bouzouki in Athens clubs and writing songs, scoring his first success with the Spanish-influenced Sevillianes, sung by Stella Haskil, in 1947. (Sevillianes was one of a number of recordings by Haskil that drew their influence from music from beyond Greece, often incorporating Arabic sounds.)
From the 1940s through to his death in 1972, he continued to perform at a variety of clubs throughout Athens, and to compose songs that were recorded by Kazantzidis, Poly Panou and other stars. Discogs.org credits him with a significant output: 63 singles and EPs, two albums and appearances on 12 compilations. His songs covered late rebetiko, laiko and other popular genres of the 1950s and ’60s.
Lafkas wrote You stabbed me in 1950, and recorded it as a duet with the wonderful Ioanna Georgakopoulou.
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