Marika Ninou

Marika Ninou (Greek: Μαρίκα Νίνου) (1922 – February 23, 1957), was an Armenian-Greek rembetiko singer, born Evangelia Atamian (Greek: Ευαγγελία Αταμιάν).

Biography

Ninou was born on the ship Evangelistria which brought her mother, her sisters and her brother to Athens from Smyrna. They just had escaped the great slaughter of the "Minor Asia Catastrophe".

When she was 7 years old, she started going to the Armenic school. There she learned the mandolin and joined the school orchestra. Meanwhile, because of her voice qualities, she chanted at the Armenian Church of St. Jacob.

In 1939 she married her first husband. In 1940 she gives birth to their son Ovanes. In 1947 Soviet ships came to Greece to take the Armenians who would want to leave and go to Armenia. Half the Armenic population of Thessaloniki and Athens left. Among them her husband who left them, mother and son, behind.

She meets the acrobat Nikos Nikolaides "Nino" in 1944 and marries him. They begin to perform together as "The Duo Nino". When her son joins the performing they become "the Two-and-a-half Nino".

In a performance of the Ninos. the artist Petros Kyriakos heard her singing and recommended her to Manolis Chiotis. Chiotis recorded two songs with her in 1948. In October, 1948, Stelakis Perpiniadis (Greek: Στελλάκης Περπινιάδης) brought her under his wing as a singer at the Florida club.

By 1949, Ninou began working with Vassilis Tsitsanis at Fat Jimmy's, a place that would serve to play a decisive role in both their lives, with the Tsitsanis-Ninou pairing coming to possess a very special place in the history of the music of Greece.

In October, 1951, Ninou performed with Tsitsanis in Constantinople, but after this trip, they decided to go their separate ways.

Before heading off to the USA in 1954, she underwent a cancer operation in Athens. Nonetheless, her cancer spread rapidly in the USA and she returned to Greece where she worked under great pain for a short while before succumbing to her illness at 34 years of age.

Legacy

Ninou possessed a high-pitched voice of substantial body and volume and impeccable tonality, and sang with emotional intensity. She recorded a total of 174 songs, of which 119 as first voice.

The film Rebetiko by Costas Ferris was based on her life.

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