Acclaimed Greek musician Lavrentis Machairitsas passed away on Monday, aged 63.
The singer suffered a heart attack during his sleep. He was transferred to the hospital of Volos, his home town, where at 6.30 am (local time) he quietly passed away.
He gave his last performance with Nikos Portokaloglou at the open-air Melina Mercouri Theatre on Friday, 6 September.
Machairitsas was born on 5 November 1956 in Volos and began taking piano lessons when he was aged six, but these lessons lasted only a year. He bought his first record ‘Help!’ by the Beatles at the age of nine and was influenced greatly by their music.
He first started singing with Panos Tzabelas after he was released from the army. Together they created Syntrofia and later he formed a band PLJ that moved to Paris in the hope of creating a music career abroad. The band later became known as Termites.
He began his solo career in 1989 as a composer and performer. His first album was ‘M’agapas kai s’agapo’ (You love me and I love you). In 1991, he released Didimotiho Blues.
He worked closely with Dionysis Tsaknis, another famous Greek musician. Together they held concerts around Greece. He has also performed with Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Haris Alexiou, Pyx Lax, Christos Thivaios, Sakis Boulas, Eleonora Zouganeli, Dimitris Mitropanos, Kostas Makedonas and Vasilis Papakonstantinou and many more.