His popularity began to increase and he had a productive collaboration with some of the most famous Greek composers of the period – Manos Loizos, Stavros Kougioumtzis, Giorgos Katsaros, Mimis Plessas, Giannis Spanos, and Tolis Voskopoulos.
Kalatzis participated in albums alongside singers such as Giorgos Dalaras, Haris Alexiou, Giannis Parios, Mariza Koch, Litsa Diamanti and Kostas Smokovitis.
[3] In the second half of the 1970s, Kalatzis co-operated with composer Nikos Karvelas and in 1981 he released an album with the songs of Tolis Voskopoulos.
His last album before giving up active singing was in 1984, however, in 1985, he took part in a big concert dedicated to composer Manos Loizos held in Athens Olympic Stadium.
In 2013 Giannis Kalatzis was honoured in the Greek version of the television programme Your Face Sounds Familiar broadcast by ANT1 with actor Konstantinos Kazakos impersonating him and performing one of his most famous songs – 'Delfini delfinaki'.