Konstantinos Roukounas (Samos

Samos Island

Samos is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the coast of Asia Minor, from which it is separated by the -wide Mycale Strait. It is also a separate regional unit of the North Aegean region, and the only municipality of the regional...

1903 – Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, 11 March 1984) was a Greek

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

 singer. His repertoire included both "traditional" (δημοτικά) and "popular" songs (λαϊκά). Most notable is his contribution to the subgenre of rebetiko

Rebetiko

Rebetiko, plural rebetika, , occasionally transliterated as Rembetiko, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek folk music which have come to be grouped together since the so-called rebetika revival, which started in the 1960s and developed further from the early...

(ρεμπέτικο). Roukounas is generally known as a singer, however he was also a songwriter.

Life

Roukounas came from a poor family and thus had to start working from the age of eight, initially at a cigarette manufacturing business and later as a carpenter. He began his artistic career in the mid-1920s as a singer at a taverna

Taverna

Taverna refers to a small restaurant serving Greek cuisine, not to be confused with "tavern". The Greek word is ταβέρνα and is originally derived from the Latin word taberna...

. Young Roukounas soon became famous among his fellow islanders of Samos for his fine voice, specialising in Smyrneika (songs originating from the nearby coast of Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

). Shortly thereafter he moved to Athens (in 1927 or 1928). There he sang professionally on various festive occasions until he was discovered by Panagiotis Tountas, a leading composer and recording industry executive. Tountas got Roukounas to make his first recordings on 78 rpm

Revolutions per minute

Revolutions per minute is a measure of the frequency of a rotation. It annotates the number of full rotations completed in one minute around a fixed axis...

 records. With his versatile voice he excelled in virtually all subgenres of traditional

Traditional music

Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...

 and rembetic

Rebetiko

Rebetiko, plural rebetika, , occasionally transliterated as Rembetiko, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek folk music which have come to be grouped together since the so-called rebetika revival, which started in the 1960s and developed further from the early...

 music. Deserving particular mention are his renditions of the most demanding technically and semi-improvisational manedes. Roukounas collaborated with many composers throughout his long career, particularly Panagiotis Tountas, Spyros Peristeris, Kostas Skarvelis

Kostas Skarvelis

Kostas Skarvelis was a Greek composer of popular music, οf the genre of rembetiko in particular. He also wrote the lyrics for his songs and was an excellent guitar player, having participated in many recordings.-Life:...

, and Grigoris Asikis

Grigoris Asikis

Grigoris Asikis was a Greek singer and songwriter of urban Greek music, Rembetiko. He wrote lyrics for most of the songs he recorded and played the outi .-Personal life:...

.

In 1934 he married the singer Anna Pagana who died of a heart attack

Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

 in 1943. Roukounas married his second wife, lyricist Alexandra Kyriazi, in 1948. They lived together in a suburb of Athens until his death in 1984.