Sotiria Bellou

Sotiria Bellou                                                          ΣΩΤΗΡΙΑ ΜΠΕΛΛΟΥ

Born 29 August 1921                                           Died 27 August, 1997

Section D2 (east of section 8) See Map below

 Contributed by Nicole Mabger


The pollination of Greek music started with Ancient Greek strains, moved through the Byzantine and Ottoman periods, and then touched upon modern Western trends. This created an amazing diversity, a myriad of genres, perhaps the most authentic being the laika (folk songs of the urban population) and its predecessor, rembetika (the music of the urban subculture). Οne of its legends was Sotiria Bellou – a troubled soul, a gambler, and one of Greece’s most original voices.

She developed her own signature style: dark glasses, hair slicked back, simple shirts, pullovers, and skirts. Deeply religious and yet a devout communist during the war years, this complex woman remained throughout her turbulent life a spirited and determined feminist.

Early Life

Sotiria was born in 1921 in the Euboean village of Chalia (Drosia) to local merchant Kyriako Bellou and his wife Eleni. The eldest of the five siblings, she was raised during her first six years by her grandparents in the village of Schimatari. Her beloved grandfather was the parish priest and the first to introduce her to the Byzantine psalms that would greatly influence her singing. When she returned home to help in her father’s grocery store, she knew she wanted to become a singer, something that her conservative mother considered inappropriate for a girl of their family’s standing. Sotiria’s stubbornness in defending her ‘wants’, often resulted in insults and beatings from her mother.  Her father was more accommodating; he bought her a guitar and paid for music lessons.

 Hearing Sophia Bembo for the first time in a cinema production proved to be a catalyst; Bembo became Sotiria’s idol.

The young Sotiria

An arranged and unhappy marriage at 18 to a local bus conductor was a disaster; he turned out to be unfaithful and an abusive drunk. Sotiria ended the fiasco by throwing acid in his face, an act of defiance that earned her a three year jail sentence (reduced to three months) and a return to the parental home where she was stigmatized and abused by all.  She flatly refused to be bound by the values of those who wanted to squeeze her into the sort of ‘woman’s role’ deemed acceptable back then. When Italy invaded Greece on the 28^th of October 1940, she saw her chance. She joined a wagon load of troops headed for Athens, leaving home and declaring  she would come back one day as a famous singer.

She was 19, passionate, and completely unaware of the hardships she would soon endure.

The First Years in Athens – Survival, and Political Activism

The life of Sotiria in Nazi-occupied Athens was a struggle. Enduring loneliness, starvation and the cold, she undertook every imaginable job: housemaid, cigarette and sweets hawker, candle seller, dishwasher, even a porter at the train station where at least she could sleep when there was nowhere else. With her first savings she bought blankets and the guitar to which she would later attribute her survival during the famine of 1941-1942. She became a street singer and sometimes appeared in the small tavernas of Athens.

Although deeply religious, her revolutionary zeal and hatred of fascism brought her into the front lines along with the communists. She joined EAM and ELAS, sold the illegal communist newspaper in the streets of Athens, although she was imprisoned, beaten, and tortured by the Nazis and their collaborators. After the liberation of Greece in 1944, she participated in the ‘Dekemvriana’ and in the civil war that followed. 

Bellou and Tsitsanis

Bellou’s career was launched in May 1945, by a great bard of the rembetiko, Vasilis Tsitsanis .He  heard her sing  in Exarchia and invited her to join him at the famous Fat Jimmy’s where he accompanied her on the piano and bouzouki. With her distinctive voice, style, and demeanor, she began to command respect, even imposing her own rules in the clubs where she was singing. She would sit on the podium beside Tsitsanis, in a row of other male musicians; this was unheard-of in the male-dominated entertainment world of the time. She did not allow song requests, the throwing of flowers, or the breaking of plates. The two songs that Tsitsani initially wrote for her (When You’re Drinking at the Taverna and The boy You Used to Date) established her reputation as a leading singer and ‘rembetissa’. 

1948 saw the release of her first album, one which included Tsitsani’s Cloudy Sunday (Συννεφιασμένη Κυριακή),  a song which is still called by many the ‘anthem of the Greek soul’. Its lyrics had been inspired by the German occupation and the sight of a young man’s executed body lying on blood-stained snow. 
  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POOMPgoCgsY for their redition of this song.

That same year, a distressing incident caused a rift between Bellou and Tsitsani. A right wing political group had entered the club where they were singing and, after she refused to perform a pro-royalist song, they attacked her. This incident marked her for life; she returned to it again and again, always incredulous that neither her colleagues nor the men in the audience had come to her rescue.  Deeply hurt, she left the club, but Tsitsanis, who loved her metallic, melodic and powerful voice, continued writing songs for her. (They eventually did continue their cooperation and performed together at Harama and other renowned clubs of Athens until his death in 1984.)   

Bellou, Vamvakaris and Hatzidakis

After leaving Tsitsanis, she joined another giant of rembetiko, Markos Vamvakaris in the Panagaki club in Alkamenous Street. He appreciated her artistry and his kindness was soothing to the multiple injuries of her soul.

They were both noticed by the then young (24 years old) up and coming composer, Manos Hatzidakis, who was one of the first to publicly praise the genuine folk qualities of their music. He admired the purity of the emotions that this music of the ‘unprivileged’ had, believing that it preserved Greek cultural and spiritual history. In an attempt to revive this urban underground music which until then had been considered ‘borderline’ immoral, he invited them to perform at  his now famous  lecture on ‘Rembetika’ at the Art Theatre in 1949. This event re-established ‘Rembetika’ on the Greek music scene and, for the first time, Sotiria Bellou earned the admiration and respect of a wider and more sophisticated audience.

 Until the mid1950s, she enjoyed tremendous popularity. 

Bellou and Others

After 1955, the public began to demand more glamour in their entertainment. Sotiria was unwilling to change her style to suit the trend and the Columbia record company dropped her from their list.

Depression and a stay at the psychiatric hospital in Athens followed. Her luck would eventually change when Alekos Patsifas, the director of Lyra Records, ‘re-discovered’ her at the ‘Isle of Hydra’ club. By 1966, she had made a series of recordings which gained the public’s interest once more.  Many composers wrote especially for her. She elevated Dionysis Savvopoulos’  Zeimbekiko to a classic and made new interpretations of old folk songs and rembetika which were very popular with the new generation who followed her in local ‘boites’ and rembetika clubs.

  Gambling, Alcohol, Cigarettes, Illness and Death

In spite of her popularity, she struggled in her private life. She was often lonely and could be angry, argumentative, intolerant, and aggressive, finding solace in cigarettes, alcohol and gambling. She was a passionate gambler. Like the ancient Greeks who rolled dice even in the Parthenon, Sotiria took every opportunity to try her luck in secret corners of Athens. Dice were hidden around her house, always ready for an opportunity.  She gambled to relax and to forget. In the process, she lost a fortune.

In 1993, her throat and vocal cords, were attacked by cancer, thrusting her on a four-year roller coaster ride with the disease. She felt abandoned by friends and colleagues. Gambling was her only consolation. She often escaped the hospital at night and returned in the morning - broke.

Penniless, alone, and full of bitterness and disappointment, she died on August 27, 1997, just before her 76^th birthday.

Her Legacy

All her life she had striven to be famous, to prove her worth to her family and others.  In the end she was loved - by the rich, the poor, and the famous. Among her many followers were people as diverse as the Greek painter Ioannis Tsarouchis, the actor Christopher Lee, and the Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou.

 During her five decade career she was generous with her voice, cooperating with many leading artists from different genres (rembetiko, ‘entechno’ and modern) who all wrote music and lyrics for her. Her unique voice along with her stunning interpretations contributed greatly to the success of their songs.

Sotiria was never officially honoured in Greece during her lifetime  but she was after her death. In 2010, a stamp with her image was issued. 

She was buried in the First cemetery at the city’s expense.

 One newspaper eulogized her by calling her a tough guy in a skirt (μάγκας με τα φουστάνια). It was intended as a compliment,  - a reference to her lesbian life style, and a testament to her life

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