Antonis Diamantidis, nickname “Hatzidiamantidis” or “Dalgas”, which is the Turkish for wave, was born in Constantinople in 1892 to a well-to-do Greek family. He began studying the oud at the age of 16, taking part in celebrations and festivals. In 1920 he began his professional career as a musician and until 1922, when he came to Greece, he sang with all the famous names of the time in the ensembles known as estudiantines and mandolinates. In Constantinople, because of his excellent voice, distinguished for its fine τσακίσματα (tsakismata, a form of ornamentation), he became known as “Dalgas”, the name with which he became famous.
It is said that when the events of 1922 occurred, he had been working in the band on the ocean liner Alexander the Great, which sailed between Greece and America. That year he settled in Athens with his wife Argyro, where he began to work with many Smyrna groups as a singer and musician. He sang with different groups in the most famous nightclubs of the time - Mourouzis, Sereleas, Pikinos and others, singling alongside some of the best musicians such as Dimitris Semsis (Salonikios), Spyros Peristeris, Costas Tzovenos, Kostas Karipis and Dimitris Arapakis.
In 1926 he began recording traditional rebetiko, folk songs, songs from Asia Minor and amanedes, as well as compositions by Panagiotis Toundas, Kostas Skarvelis, Dimitris Semsis, Giannis Dragatsis and others, as well as his own. His accompanist was the renowned lyra player Lambros Leondaridis. He sang 89 amanedhes and 33 rebetika on 427 different recordings that he made until 1933. Of those, 78 are his own compositions. After 1930, he replaced the oud with a guitar and expanded his repertoire with ligher songs (cantatas, revue numbers, foreign songs and others). After 1941 he stopped working in night clubs and at festivals; he suffered from poverty and great hardships until his death in 1945. Antonis Diamantidis was one of the greatest voices in Greek singing between the wars.