Kate Gray: The difficult childhood, glory, legendary love and personal tragedies – “I lived for 100 lives…”

On the side of her beloved son Vasilis, to her parents, to the great loves, to the beloved composers “rested” now the great popular voice, the myth. Kati Gray, put her seal with her rare voice in generations and generations of Greeks singing the marazi of love, the harsh divisions, betrayal… “Sitting in the living room of her house in New Smyrna, she confirms that she did what Maria Callas did: ‘If something didn’t like where I was working, if I felt that I was being thrown or treated well, if the orchestra or staff didn’t work as I agreed, I would take my coat and say ‘I’m leaving, I’m Grey!’ I always knew who I was!”, she wrote in her biography “Kaiti Gray, This is my life” the poet George Chronas. In just four paragraphs, her biographer described the greatness of soul that was nesting within the leading folk singer. The most expensive women’s popular voice of the 1960s, with over 3,000 songs (among them some of the diamonds the mountain”, “turn me to sleep”, “you said it and “you did it”, “take my tears”, “he lit the cigarette” …) extinguished just two months before completing a century of life. A century of life! With difficult childhood, folk struggles, unsurpassed songs, epic collaborations, stormy love, betrayals, disappointments, unstoppable applause, delirious fans, millions of broken dishes at her feet, worship… Katie Gray wasn’t just a singer case. She was a lioness who managed to survive and impose on a male-occupied space, long before female empowerment became a banner in the hands of modern women. He gave a voice to love, the crush, the passions, the pain… Like the one she’s already experienced since her cubs. The difficult childhood On May 14, 1924, the Mytilinis of Samos welcomed a new member who would later receive the name Athanasia Gizili. “I was born in Samos. When I was a year old I was adopted by a married couple, great people, in Taburia, Piraeus, Caesarea 14. My mom, the real one, didn’t just give me up for adoption and gave my brother, John. He couldn’t live us. Such poverty in Samos. For this adoption, the sister of my stepmother, who also lived in Samos, did it. My new dad was called Costa and my mom was around”… At the age of 7, she loses her stepdad. The occupation finds it in Turkey, then in the Middle East and again in Piraeus with liberation. At 14 he learned fashion, at 14 he married: “My mom tells me one day: “Nikos wants to marry you”. “Oh, I, ” I say, ‘ am not getting married. I want to finish the fashion and then we’ll see.’ He gave me two slaps and said, ‘You will get him because I work and I have no dowry to give you, I have only your virginity. If you lose this, you’re lost too”. He 36, she 14. She had two children with him and when she broke up at 18 she started working as a dancer, as an actress in the famous balls and also as a singer of the light repertoire. With a special accent with excellent comfort on the fine notes, Kate Gray managed to impose as one of the top in the folk song and become a member of the “saint triad” Kati Grey, Polly Panou, Yota Lydia. For her first recording Kate Gray remembered: “…it was Mitsakis in Petersburg, I knock on the door, as soon as Mitsakis came out she tells me, come on, girl, I am waiting for you. Are you Katie Gray? Mitsakis had the tracks in front of him. They already called him from Columbia. He took me in, and he rehearses me in a song, my first song. “Yours will eat me” He tells me, you will come tomorrow to make another sheep, although you have learned the song, because I see that you grab it quickly and quickly, but to make another sheep. After the success she noted, her name was written in the marquises as a first name in the largest centers of the time but also to grammize all the great composers of her time. He performed the first performances of composer songs such as: Markos Vambakaris, Giannis Papaioannou, Vassilis Tsitsanis, George Mitsakis, Christos Kolokotronis, Evtiia Papagiannopoulou, Kostas Virvos, Theodores Derveniotis, Babis Bakalis, George Zabetas and Panos Tzavellas. One success succeeded the other with songs such as: ‘ Light the cigarette ‘, ‘ Never make the mother bitter ’, the legendary ‘ Mountain ’, ‘ Take my tears ’, ‘ Sit on my couch ‘, ‘ You said it and you did it ‘, ‘ The cruel breakup ’ and a series of shots by Vassilis Chitsanis — first performed but also again — such as ‘ Look! He collaborated with the elite of artists, named legends such as: Rosa Eskenazis, Stratos Pagioumtzis, Stelios Kazantzidis, Gregory Bithikotsis, Poli Panou, Mary Linda, Yota Lydia, Antonis Repanis, Stratos Dionysiou, Rita Sakellari, Spyros Zagorios, Panos Gavalas, Giorgos Dalaras, Eleni Vitalis, Glykeria, Charoula Alexiou, Constantina, Alkistis Protopsaltis, Dimitra Galanis, Antonis Vardis, Stefanos Korkolis, Christos Dante, Equinos and He. In the 1960s she was the most expensive singer having a wage that even exceeded the $8,000. Her last major success was “A woman only knows ” in 1995 and a year later, in 1996 she said goodbye to discography and nightclubs, after a full life at the forefront of the song, leaving the baton to the new generation. Loves that left time Stelios Kazantzidis was her first love as she had confessed. Their fiery romance began from a game of fate which was initiated by the mother of the legendary folk bard, Gerthemanis. In the early 50 ’ s, she appeared in Zephyr, New Heraklion. The conductor and composer Gerasimos Kluvatos, gave money to Kazantzid’s mother who at the time was imprisoned in Makronisos. So every time his mother visited the store, she gave her money. Upon release, Kazantzidis was found in Zephyr to thank the beautiful girl who gave money to his mother. Their relationship began in a taxi in 1953 and ended in glory after a miscarriage and many scenes of jealousy had preceded. The loss of her son and the end The last years of her life, she had retired to her home in New Smyrna surrounded by her loved ones. In November 2021, she experienced an incredible tragedy when the son of Vasilis Iliadis left life. No member of the family said anything to the 98 year old then Kate Gray, nor did her beloved granddaughter and well-known singer Angeliki Iliadis. Her eldest son Philip took on this ungrateful role… Kate Gray lived a life at high speeds, with all those ingredients that make up a brilliant film. Her artistic footprint will remain indelible in the years, because she lived in authentic times, sang timeless songs, as an example of a dynamic woman. A few years ago, in an interview with philenenews, she gave in her own words the best ending she deserved in the way she lived: “I was never afraid. I’m not afraid of death either. I lived for 100 lives, darling. I closed all the issues. I have no unfinished business.”