Stratos Pagioumtzis
Stratos Pagioumtzis was a Greek rebetiko singer, also known with the nickname Stratos the sluggard or simply Stratos.Biography
Pagioumtzis was born in Ayvalık of Asia Minor at 1904 and migrated to Greece before the Greco-Turkish war of 1919–1922. He settled in the port city of Piraeus and supported himself by working as a fisherman and later as a supplier of provisions to moored ships, always having in mind to work with his greatest passion, music. He started to sing professionally in the late 1920s and his first recordings appeared in 1933.
In 1934, He got together with other Greek rebetiko singers Yiorgos Batis, Anestis Delias and Markos Vamvakaris, and founded the rebetiko quartet, I Tetras i Xakousti tou Peiraios. In 1937, during the Metaxas dictator regime, he was convicted of drug use and was expelled to the Cycladic island of Sifnos.
Pagioumtzis had a beautiful voice which made him widely known. He is considered as one of the greatest singer of the classical rebetiko era. Pagioumtzis recorded over 400 songs with his voice and worked with many well-known composers such as Vassilis Tsitsanis, Giannis Papaioannou, Bayianteras, and Panagiotis Toundas. Vassilis Tsitsanis once said that Pagioumtzis had nightingales in his throat.
Pagioumtzis died of a stroke on 16 November 1971 in New York, after completing a concert in a Greek nightclub.
