Gravesite of Harilaos Piperakis / Τάφος Χαρίλαου Κρητικού / San Francisco, California

Χαρίλαος Κρητικός (Charilaos Kritikos/Piperakis/Pappadakis) 11/19/1888-12/22/1978

The great Harilaos Piperakis played the Cretan lyra (a kind of upright 'lap violin'). He recorded about 60 sides under his own name from the 1910s to the 1950s.

In the 1910s and 1920s he recorded for the Victor, GRC, and Pharos record companies. In the 1930s he recorded for Columbia and Victor. In the 1940s he recorded extensively solo and as accompanist for artists on the Kaliphon-Balkan-Metropolitan labels, and solo for Liberty and Grecophon.

[A fairly complete discography is available at page 79 of this excellent thesis:

Several cities in California and the western USA (το Γουέστ) were featured in his songs: San Francisco, Vallejo, Sacramento, Lodi, Salt Lake City (Utah), Butte (Montana).

Harilaos Piperakis lived for many years in Fairfield, California, about 55 miles northeast of his final resting place. He is buried in the Greek Orthodox Memorial Park in Colma, just south of the city of San Francisco, California.

Accompanying music is an instrumental version of a Turkish song "Oglan, Oglan" from Harilaos' LP "Mr. Lyra in Port Said", Aristophone HLP 1005, recorded in the early 1960s.

[PhilipPiperakis]

Thank you. He is my Populi. Thank you for all the work you did on this.