The interview he gave last night was emotional and revealing Thanasis Polykandriotis on his show Manou Nifli “Moments” on channel One.

The great composer and musician who grew up in a family that was “doomed” to love music, since his father, Thodoros Polykandriotis, was a great composer in his time, as was his brother Giannis. He himself dreamed of becoming a Civil Engineer but life had other plans:

“The years pass and at some point at 15.5 I read about the Micro Polytechnic because my dream was to be a Civil Engineer. From the first and second year of high school, I read full time in order to apply to the Micro Polytechnic. Then, in the summer of 1963, a friend of my father’s, Yannis Katsimihas, comes, who says, Theodore, will you give me your son to go to the countryside to make some appearances, specifically at Pyrgos Ilias.

“Thanasis can’t” he tells him “because he doesn’t play bouzouki, but take Giannis” Giannis was working with Rita Sakellariou at the time and he couldn’t. And so I go because my father says, I see how his hands play the guitar. Until then, I had never held a bouzouki in my hands. 15.5 years old. I wore long pants for the first time

On the second night a eupatridis who had just come from America was dancing with his company, in the orchestra we also had Dimitris Jara, the late clarinetist, and he shouts “Hello Jara with your clarinet” and falls down dry. I felt like crying, little boy. They tried to help him, the grandfather left. You understand that 15.5 years old I have a death. Oh my god, what’s going on now?

It’s mind blowing, we finish in a week because it didn’t last longer, this story had adventures. I call my father and tell him so and so, we are unpaid. He says to me, do you have money to take the bus to come? I tell him I have and I go home to Egaleo, give him the bouzouki and the amplifier and tell him, I’m done with the bouzouki. This cannot be done.”

While he also narrated the adventure he went through with his health and ordered him not to touch a bouzouki for three months because he was in danger of being paralyzed in his right hand.

Finally, he referred to the term bouzoukist that Manolis Chiotis spontaneously coined to replace bouzouksis.