In my quest to move across the music spectrum, I was lucky to find this artist as I was channel-surfing and he happened to have a special on PBS:
Pavlo Simtikidis (Pavlo) (born June 29, 1969) is a guitarist who plays, "a Mediterranean sound mixing the folkloric styles of Greek, Spanish and Latin music with pop sensibilities." Born in Toronto, Canada, he is the son of Greek immigrants ...
I watched Pavlo in Kastoria, a concert he gave from his parents's hometown. He used to vacation there as a kid with his parents. I had not realized he was Canadian until after the first pause in PBS's money drive.
Love the different influences in his sound. And there wasn't a dull moment, there were several guest artists playing a variety of instruments that added to the magic of his evening.
During the pauses, he was interviewed by these anal-retentive PBS hosts who were busy peddling "sustainer" subscriptions -- and he would just randomly blurt out "Opaaaaaaa!!!!!!!" and then break a plate.
The guy is really charismatic and knows how to connect to an audience. He has 14 albums to his credit.
On one particular segment, he goes into the audience, where his parents are sitting and plays for them. You can see both parents fighting back tears, it was an incredibly moving moment. The son of immigrants going back to his parents's home country -- doesn't get any better than that.
Here's one of the songs that he played in Kastoria.