Rock musician Antonis Tourkogiorgis, 72, dies

Rock musician Antonis Tourkogiorgis has died at the age of 72, a friend and colleague of his, Kostas Bigalis, posted Sunday.

Along with guitarist Yannis Spathas, Tourkogiorgis, who sang and played bass guitar, were the mainstays of local rock group Socrates Drank the Conium, also well-known simply as Socrates, from 1969 to 2010, when Tourkogiorgis first faced serious health issues.

Melding the hard-edged blues and psychedelia of Cream and Jimi Hendrix with prog-rock-influenced time signatures, Socrates enjoyed fame in Greece for years, with many considering them the best local rock group ever. Their desire for an international career did not pan out, though. Two of their albums, On the Wings and Phos, the latter produced by Vangelis, saw limited release in the US in the 1970s.

Tourkogiorgis' cause of death was not immediately known. Spathas died in July 2019 at...