Tsertos Bambis

Born on 27 October 1956 at Tropea in the Arcadia prefecture Babis Tsertos went to Athens at the age of seventeen - and has been living there ever since. Althogh he had been a singer and church cantor from early on, he was now anxious to take a University degree.
He enrolled in the Physics Department of Athens University in 1974.
“I was very lucky to grow up in a family where everyone sang very well”, he says. “My father played the mandolin as well. I was lucky to grow up in Tropea too: it was the big commercial and cultural centre of its area. I can still remember quite a few parties - where we could hear all kinds of Greek music”.
As a student, Babis Tsertos was living at a time when rembetika was being revived. He learnt to play the bouzouki and joined the University group, singing popular, rebetika and folk songs.
"My life started to be closely bound up with music; we partied almost every night in the restaurants, playing and singing. However, at that time I wasn’t thinking about being a professional performer - perhaps because I knew at second hand what the life was like, as my sister Nadia Karagianni was already a singer.