Anestos Delias

Anestis Delias was a Greek bouzouki player, composer and singer of rebetiko. Delias was from a musical family of Smyrna in Anatolia, who arrived on the Greek mainland as a young refugee during the Greco-Turkish war. He became an accomplished player of the bouzouki and joined with other musicians in the refugee suburbs of Athens and Piraeus, creating music in the 1930s that exemplifies the genre known as Piraeus rebetiko. Delias played on early rebetiko recordings, including songs of his own composition released under his name. He became addicted to heroin and died of starvation, aggravated by his drug dependency, during the Nazi occupation of Greece. Despite his short life, Anestis Delias was an important figure and an influential exponent of the Piraeus-style of rebetiko.