Stratos Pagioumtzis

[1] Pagioumtzis was born in 1904 in the Asia Minor town of Ayvalık and he migrated to Greece before the Greco-Turkish war of 1919–1922.

[2] 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, but he always had in mind to earn his living from his greatest passion, music.

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 (Greek: Η τετράς η ξακουστή του Πειραιώς, literally The famed quarted of Piraeus).

[1] In 1937, during the Metaxas dictator regime, he was convicted of drug use and was exiled internally to the Cycladic island of Sifnos.

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.