Yiorgos Batis (, also Giorgos Batis) (1885 – 10 March 1967) was one of the first

rebetes A rebetis (Greek language, Greek: ρεμπέτης ; pl. rebetes ρεμπέτες {{IPA, e(m)ˈbetes is a musician involved in the scene of the Greek musical genre of rebetiko, which flourished between 1920 and 1955. Prominent ''rebetes'' inclu ...

influential to ''

rebetiko Rebetiko (, ), plural rebetika ( ), occasionally transliterated as rembetiko or rebetico, is a term used to designate previously disparate kinds of urban Greek music which in the 1930s went through a process of musical syncretism and develope ...

'' music. His real name was Yiorgos Tsoros although he was known as Yiorgos Ampatis. He had a great love for music and musical instruments ( baglamas, bouzouki, etc.).

Life and career

He was born in Methana in 1885 and moved to

Piraeus Piraeus ( ; ; , Ancient: , Katharevousa: ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens city centre along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf in the Ath ...

when he was very young. He served in the Greek army from 1912 to 1918. In the mid-1920s, he opened a music school called "Carmen". He opened a

café A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café (), is an establishment that serves various types of coffee, espresso, latte, americano and cappuccino, among other hot beverages. Many coffeehouses in West Asia offer ''shisha'' (actually called ''nargi ...

named "Georges Baté" in 1931 and formed one of the most important scenes of rebetiko music. He continued to work as a quack-salesman, improvising treatments for toothake and other minor ailments. He kept a collection of many instruments and also used to name them. In 1933, Yiorgos Batis did his first sound-recording with bouzouki in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. In the 1930s, he dedicated himself solely to music and collaborated closely with

Anestis Delias Anestis Delias ( – 31 July 1944) was a Greeks, Greek bouzouki player, composer and singer of ''rebetiko''. Delias was from a musical family of İzmir, Smyrna in Anatolia, who arrived on the Greek mainland as a young Greek refugees, refugee du ...

Markos Vamvakaris Markos Vamvakaris (; 10 May 1905 – 8 February 1972), was a Greek musician of ''rebetiko'', universally referred to by ''rebetiko'' writers and fans simply by his first name, Markos. The great significance of Vamvakaris for the rebetiko is als ...

, and Stratos Pagioumtzis in a rebetiko band (). He appeared in Alekos Sakelariou's 1954 film (). He died in Piraeus on March 10, 1967.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Batis, Yiorgos 1885 births 1967 deaths 20th-century Greek male singers Greek rebetiko singers People from Troizinia-Methana