1. Tountas' activity in Smyrna

Panagiotis Tountas, possibly the greatest musician from Asia Minor settled in Greece after the Asia Minor Catastrophe in 1922, was born in Smyrna in 1886. Born into a wealthy family, he started learning to play various musical instruments at an early age. He was particularly interested in the mandolin. As an instrument player, he was a member of the world famous Smyrna Estudiantina the ‘Politakia’ in the early 20th century, like another great composer of the Smyrna school, Spyros Peristeris.

2. Tountas' career and work in Greece

When the Greeks were uprooted from Asia Minor, he settled in Athens in 1924 and became the director of Odeon. Most of the 1923-1932 recordings were made under his supervision, when the creators and singers from Asia Minor were the main expressers of popular music. As the art director of Columbia (1931-1940), Tountas continued to dominate the recording business in Greece in a period when the Smyrna school was gradually giving way to Rebetiko (Greek urban folk song), which was mainly represented by Markos Vamvakaris.

Playing an important role in music business in the 1920s and 1930s, Tountas as a composer mainly expressed the school of Smyrna. Although he wrote some songs in the ‘new’ style of Rebetiko, as the latter was evolved from 1932-33 onwards, the large part of his work places him at the top of the team of the great refugee musicians dominating the Greek popular music from 1922 until 1932 (such as V. Papazoglou, G. Asikis and A. Diamantidis or ‘Dalgas’). Many hit songs of the 1920s and the 1930s belong to Tountas, such as ‘Naughty Lili’ ('Lili I Skandaliara'-1931), ‘I Want a Princess’ ('Ego Thelo Pringipessa'-1935), ‘The Waitress’ ('I Garsona'-1936) and ‘My Dimitroula’ ('Dimitroula Mou'-1936).

An incident¹ reflecting the political climate of the time in relation with popular songs and censorship should be mentioned. In the late 1934 or the early 1934 one of the most well known songs by Tountas, ‘Barbara’ ('Barbara'), sung by Stelakis Perpiniadis, was released. It was a happy song ironically commenting on the behaviour of a high-society girl of the time and her ‘immoral friends’ in the prosperous, coastal suburbs of Athens, like Glyfada. Although the song was released before the dictatorship of August 4, 1936, it was deemed that its lyrics aimed at the future dictator Ioannis Metaxas and his two daughters (although neither of them was called Barbara), who frequently escorted him (as well as the rest of his family) when he strolled in Glyfada. The case went to court and Tountas was convicted for the content of his song. After a while, in early 1937, the Censorship Committee was formed and was involved in several cases concerning music business in Greece.

Tountas Panagiotis died in 1942 from rheumatism.