Yannis Spathas

Who is Yannis Spathas?

Yannis Spathas is a Greek rock, blues and folk guitarist and composer who was best known for his lead guitar work with the Greek rock band Socrates Drank The Conium in the early 1970s.

Born at Paxoi in 1950, Spathas made his first musical debuts playing accordion, classical guitar and drums with his uncles in his father's band during his childhood. At the age of 15, he began studying Jimi Hendrix and blues-rock, as well as folk anthems with clarinetist Tasos Chalkias. He continued to study Cretan serenades, rebetiko and traditional music from India and the Balkan countries before learning music theory and counterpoint under the guidance of Kostas Klavvas few years later.

His style is very similar to that of Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Duane Allman, Eric Clapton, and some of Tony Iommi's bluesier music. Of these, Hendrix's influence was probably the greatest, evidenced mainly by the fact that Socrates Drank the Conium covered several of his songs at their early concerts in the clubs of Athens, Greece, where they were discovered.

As a session musician and arranger, Spathas has played and toured with other famous artists such as Giannis Markopoulos, Mikis Theodorakis, Vangelis, Dionysis Savvopoulos, Manos Hadjidakis, Alkinoos Ioannidis, George Dalaras, Haris Alexiou, Eleni Vitali and Vassilis Lekkas on their major concerts in Greece, Europe, USA and Canada. His relationship with Lekkas yielded three albums, "Syntoma Oneira", "Klassika Ikonografimena" and "Spinthiras", in conjunction with lyricists Evgenios Aranitsis and Lina Nikolakopoulou.