There is a scene in The Stranger That Night (1972) where Robert Williams sings “A Girl at the Fountain” with Poll, and his performance shows some important characteristics of the domestic version of folk and pop music that, for a little longer, “children flowers” will be played in Europe and America: Williams is modest but sensitive, and although he has an aura from other places, he sings about mountains and springs that evoke familiar landscapes.

What’s more, the musician, who died Sunday at the age of 73 after battling cancer, was born in Athens to a Greek mother and a British father. And perhaps it was his “double” origins that put a stone on his creative path, which began with Poll (together with Kostas Tournas, whom he knew from earlier musical ventures), who also combined international youth music with Greek poetry: on such recordings like “Anthrope…”, Poll managed to leave behind such tracks as “Anthrope agapa”, “My sun”, “Old man” and others, which are more than evidence of a distinct domestic musical trend of the past.

In his solo career, Williams would excel with songs such as “Like a dream” (1975), which he performed with Besa Argyraki, “Speak to me” (1976), “Mes din proshesi mou se thymaai” in 1978 (which would later be sound in the title of the series “The Shining”) and, of course, for his participation in “Solfèze Lesson” by Giorgos Hatzinassios, which gave Greece fifth place in Eurovision 1977.

It would therefore be rather simplistic to memorialize his memory for his controversial choices: for example, the militant play The New Democracy was recorded in 1985 on cassette with the comically divisive title “Democracy or Marxism” and in an era that did not favor pop. Williams would later say that this choice hurt his career, but he would do it again.