| George Dalaras was born in Nea Kokkinia, in Piraeus, in 1950. His father was one of the most famous Greek "rempetes", Loukas Ntaralas. Being a small kid, he had to do many different jobs to help his family, because his father left it. However, it is certain that the virus of music had already infected him.
The first amateurish recording I have in my archive(and I think it is the first he has) is a song of his father named "Wry thorn" in which he sings and his father plays the bouzouki. This took place at the age of 15, around 1965.
While being a student he made his first live appearances and by his seventeen he was a professional singer. His first experience was in the club "Stou Stelaki" with Stelios Perpiniadis, where he performed as a guitarist and as a singer. At the same time he made audiences but all the famous singers and composers of those years (including Stelios Kazantzidis, Giorgos Zampetas) plew him with the excuse of his small age.
In 1967, he recorded his first song, "Expectation", which, naturally, due to its lyrics, faced the curfew. A bit later, Spiros Zagoreos, friend of his father, called in Makis Matsas at his club in Plaka to listen to the voice of George Dalaras. Matsas got enthusiastic and so George signed his first contract.
In 1968, after participating in some Lps with songs of Manos Loizos and George Mitsakis, he records his first personal LP, with songs of Stavros Kougioumtzis, Loukianos Kilaidonis, Grigoris Fountas, Giorgos Mitsakis based on lyrics of Stavros Kougioumtzis, Akos Daskalopoulos, Dimitris Iatropoulos and Kostas Virvos, Lp which sold hundred of thousands of copies. Since then, he has sold about ten million Lps, personal or participations.
Some importants points of his career, as I see it, are the following:
- His cooperation in the very first years of his career with
Stavros Kougioumtzis, a very creative cooperation which
leaves behind many diachronic songs.
- His cooperation with Apostolos Kaldaras, which
created great works, like Minor Asia and Byzantine
Evening.
- The Lp with the 18 small songs of Mikis Theodorakis,
just after the fall of junta, in 1974
- The double album "50 years of rempetiko" (1975) and
generally his avocation with the rempetika songs, which
finally got accepted by the society.
- His withdrawal from night clubs, in 1978, with last
point of this part of his career to be the music hall
"Diagonios"
- The Lp "A walk in the world" with Giannis
Markopoulos, in 1979.
- The "Radar" with Mikis Theodorakis, in 1981
- His appearances in the theatre of Orfeas, in January of
1983, and the two concerts in Olympic Stadium, in
September of the same year, which were attended by
160.000 people. The impressive thing is that those
concerts were sold out five days earlier!!
- The Lp with Stavros Kougioumtzis, "Mad and angels",
after ten years.
- His tours in Europe and all the world in the years
that followed, during which he performed in the
top artistic halls of the world(Olympia theatre in Paris,
Radio City in New York) and his participation in many
international festivals, such as the festival of
Cuba(1981),
the Europalia Festival of Brussels(1982), the Peace Festival
of Vienna(1983), the Youth Festival of Moscow(1985),
the concert of International Amnesty in Athens(1988)
- The presentation, in 1994, in Athens Music Hall, of
the performance "With light and death uninterruptedly",
with the cooperation of Costas Gavras.
- The two concerts in the ancient theatre of Herod of
Attikon, in September of 1995, dedicated to Mikis
Theodorakis, with the accompaniment of the famous
Metropolitan Orchestra. A double album with recordings
from these concerts was released as an EMI Classics.
- His return to halls where drink is served, in the music
theatre of Iera Odos, in November of 1996.
It is remarkable that he is a part of Minos from 1968 till today. Of course he participated in other's works, in other companies.
George Dalaras is a pioneer in the music development in Greece. He learned or reminded to his audience songs that had been forgotten(rempetiko, smirneiko) and also performed well in other interesting kinds of music such as latin. He worked on all kinds of Greek music, even on traditional music. He participated with great performance in the double album of Chronis Aidonidis "Nightingales of East".
He cooperated with all the great and famous Greek composers and lyricists(Theodorakis, Hatzidakis, Xarhakos, Kougioumtzis, Kaldaras, Loizos, Markopoulos, Spanos, Thanos Mikroutsikos, Nikolopoulos, Lefteris Papadopoulos, Manos Eleftheriou, Pithagoras, Kostas Tripolitis and more). He also cooperated with foreign famous artists, such as Paco de Lucia, Al di Meola, Ariel Ramirez, to mention those who I liked more, and also Sting, Joan Faulkner, Stephen Schubert, Dick Bakker, Bruse Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Ian Anderson. Of course he cooperated with other Greek artists, such as Haris Alexiou, Dimitra Galani, Vasilis Papakonstantinou, brothers Katsimiha, Pix Lax.
His efforts for Cyprus are remarkable. He gave many concerts inside and outside Greece and Cyprus, in Europe and America singing the enviableness of Greek people for freedom in Cyprus. Unforgetable points of this course were the concerts in Wembley theatre, in London, and also in Chicago Theatre Arena(capacity of 25.000 seats, sold out), the largest theatre of the world. For the same purpose, there were released two Lps, with the songs written for Cyprus by Cypriots. For his activity on this issue, George Dalaras was awarded with the John Kenendy award, in 1994
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