Biography
Vasilis Tsitsanis (1915 - 1984) was one of the greatest Greek folk composers and lyricists of the 20th century. He was also a master of the bouzouki and an excellent performer.
Tsitsanis was born in Trikala on January 18, 1915 to Epirotian parents and had 4 brothers. His father was a tinsmith and an amateur mandolin player. When he died, Vassilis was in high school and having learned to play the violin, he participated in some local events in order to contribute financially to his family.
In the fall of 1936, Tsitsanis went to Athens to study law and in order to supplement his income he got a job at the night club "Bizelia". He met the singer Dimitris Perdikopoulos there, who took him with him to the Odeon, to play bouzouki on recordings of folk songs.
He soon emerged as a master of the bouzouki and began writing songs that he recorded with the voices of Perdikopoulos and other singers of that time. In March 1938 he served his military service in Thessaloniki, there he met his future wife, with whom he would have two children.
During the German occupation he stayed in Thessaloniki, where for a period of four years (1942–1946) he had his own music taverna, "Ouzeri o Tsitsanis". During that time he wrote some of his best songs, such as: "Ungrateful", "Baxe chifliki", "Ta perix", "Magic nights", "Beggar of love", "Derbenderissa", "Cloudy Sunday".
In 1946 he returned to Athens and started recording again. Next to him, singers such as Sotiria Bellou, Ioanna Georgakopoulou, Marika Ninou became widely known. In the following years, Tsitsanis was widely accepted. From 1970 he performed at the "Harama" center and especially after the fall of the Junta (1974), he started concerts in stadiums and open spaces with thousands of people. Vassilis Tsitsanis put his own indelible stamp on Greek folk music. He introduced western melodic elements to the rebetiko, enriched the folk orchestra with new sounds, adding the piano and the accordion, he moved away from the traditional forms of couplet and rhyme.
He died on January 18, 1984 (on his birthday) in London after undergoing lung surgery in an attempt to treat cancer.