Yannis Spathas (30 November 1950 – 6 July 2019) was a Greek guitarist, founding member of the rock band

Socrates Drank the Conium Socrates Drank the Conium, known also as Socrates, is a Greek rock band that formed in 1969 and achieved success in the 1970s. Influenced by heavy blues and rock bands like The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream, the band melded the unorthodox ti ...

(or simply Socrates), and one of the most famous Greek electric guitar players.

Biography

Born in 1950 in

Paxos Paxos ( gr, Παξός) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, lying just south of Corfu. As a group with the nearby island of Antipaxos and adjoining islets, it is also called by the plural form Paxi or Paxoi ( gr, Παξοί, pronounced in Engl ...

, Yannis came in contact with music through his father and uncles and he learned how to play various instruments. He grew up in

Pireas Piraeus ( ; el, Πειραιάς ; grc, Πειραιεύς ) is a Port#Ancient Greece, port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica (region), Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens' city centr ...

, where he formed the band Persons (1966-1969), with Antonis Tourkogiorgis and Ilias Asvestopoulos, and later on formed the Socrates band again with Tourkogiorgis. In 1983, after the split of the Socrates band, Spathas collaborated as an orchestra and guitarist with artists. In 1999 he released his first personal album, in which

Haris Alexiou Haris Alexiou ( el, Χάρις Αλεξίου, ; born 27 December 1950 in Thebes, Greece as Hariklia Roupaka, el, Χαρίκλεια Ρουπάκα, ) is a Greek singer. She is considered one of the most popular singers in Greece and has been co ...

participated. According to Spathas, his greatest influences were

Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...

and Anastasios Chalkias.

References

Greek guitarists Greek musicians 1950 births 2019 deaths Musicians from Piraeus {{guitarist-stub