Eleni Legaki

Eleni Legaki was born in Athens in 1956. She grew up as the first of four children in a poor neighbourhood of Agios Ioannis Rentis, near Piraeus. In a 2023 interview with the newspaper Espresso she remembered a happy, carefree childhood, her father Stelios Legakis, a bus driver, and her mother, “kyra-Rini”: the singer Irini Konitopoulou-Legaki (1931–2022), who was born on Naxos into a family of violinists who knew the island tradition deeply.

Singing, she said, was a natural consequence of that home, and she never regretted it. She began to sing professionally at thirteen, at her own insistence, under the protection of her mother and of her mother’s brothers Giorgos, Kostas and Vangelis Konitopoulos, who made up the band. Her first appearance was at an island γλέντι (glendi, a festive evening of music and dance), and she remembers a lot of stage fright. At first she sang the chorus beside her mother; later she sang solo.

From 1984 to 2008 mother and daughter appeared together at the music venue Armenaki. The Domna Samiou archive writes that Irini, her brother Giorgos and later her daughter Eleni shaped a whole family school of island song. Irini died in March 2022. A year later Eleni spoke of 54 years on stage and of the great love she had received from audiences.

Her repertoire is island song: dance tunes, love songs and songs of the sea and the islands, in the tradition her family had played for generations. Early recordings include Αγάπη και θάλασσα (Love and Sea), Όταν ακούω το βιολί (When I Hear the Violin), Καλοκαίρι στο νησί (Summer on the Island) and Τα πάντα ρει (Everything Flows), a title that borrows the famous saying attributed to Heraclitus. Digital catalogues list a live album, Νησιώτικο γλέντι (Island Feast, 1987), the album Το καλοκαίρι στο νησί (Summer on the Island, 1991), and Ους ο Θεός συνέζευξεν (Those Whom God Has Joined, 2001), a collection of wedding songs from all over Greece. Further studio and live albums followed up to 2010, and new singles appeared in 2024.

She has also stepped outside tradition. On Tzimis Panousis’s album Vivere Pericolosamente (1993) she sings Σαν φεγγαράκι (Like a Little Moon) with him. She has recorded single songs in the έντεχνο (art-song) style, such as Μέθυσε η αγάπη (Love Got Drunk) and Απόψε (Tonight). In 2023 she explained why new island songs are rare: it is very hard, she said, to find songs as she would want them, based on the roots of the old ones. In her view, traditional song never received the place or the support it deserves and is treated like a museum genre, yet its strength overcomes all this.

Eleni Legaki carries the Konitopoulos family style into a new generation, and she still sings at summer festivals: in 2023 she named events on Andros, Naxos, Kasos, Paros and Evia, in Laconia and in Galatas. Her real reward, she says, comes from the families who come to celebrate and the young people who dance to the fast island rhythms until they drop. For a Greek task, look at the titles Καλοκαίρι στο νησί (Summer on the Island) and Νησιώτικο γλέντι (Island Feast). Explain in Greek the difference between νησί (island), χωριό (village) and τόπος (place, homeland), then write one sentence with the adjective νησιώτικος, for example: Το νησιώτικο γλέντι κρατά ως το πρωί (The island feast lasts until morning).

• Her first professional appearance, at thirteen, was at an island glendi, and she remembers a lot of stage fright.
• She sang with her mother at the Armenaki venue for 24 years, from 1984 to 2008.
• She recorded the duet Σαν φεγγαράκι (Like a Little Moon) with the satirical singer-songwriter Tzimis Panousis.
• Her grandfather, Michalis Konitopoulos, was a violinist known by the nickname “the baby”.