George Dalaras

George Dalaras has been a superstar in Greece for nearly forty years, with more than sixty solo albums to his credit and almost as many collaborations with famed colleagues from all over the world like Sting, Paco de Lucia, Al di Meola, and Ian Anderson. Born in 1950 in the city of Piraeus, he was the son of a once well-known rembetika artist, Loukas Daralas (the younger artist changed his last name). It was unsurprising, then, that he should take up rembetika as well, but he also grew up absorbing Greece's laïka (pop music) and traditional styles.

Dalaras made his debut at age fifteen as a guitarist and singer, and came of age as an artist at a very difficult time Greece's history: just as a harsh military dictatorship came to power—it was a regime that was quick to ban art forms to which it objected, including rembetika. His first solo album in 1969 was quickly followed the next year by an album titled Natane to 21 ("If Only It Were '21). The album's title was a reference to 1821, the first year of the Greek War of Independence. He has continued to be politically outspoken on both national and international platforms, and to work as a humanitarian activist, throughout his career. In 1973, for example, he recorded Mikis Theodorakis' 18 Little Songs of a Bitter Homeland (Minos-EMI), which were settings of politically charged poetry by Yiannis Ritsos.

He has done much to revitalize interest in rembetika and a related genre called smyrnaika (early 20th-century music from the Greek community of Asia Minor); projects like 50 Chronia Rembetiko Tragoudi (50 Years of Rembetika Songs) (Minos-EMI) reintroduced the public to classics written by artists like Markos Vamvakaris and Vassilis Tsitsanis. To sample music from across Dalaras' career, try George Dalaras: A Portrait (EMI Hemisphere). —Anastasia Tsioulcas