Born in Smyrna in 1914, Rita Abatzi was the sister of the less successful Sofia Karivali. She began her singing career during the early 1930’s. Rita sang Smyrneika, dimotika, and rebetika.
Along with Roza Eskenazi, she was the number one female star on Greek 78 rpm recordings during the decade until 1940. She worked with all the leading composers of the era - Panagiotis Toundas, Evangelis Papazoglou, Kostas Skarvelis, Spiros Peristeris, Dimitris Semsis (‘Salonikios’), Markos Vamvakaris, Vassilis Tsitsanis and others.
After WW2 she made no further recordings. Rita Abatzi died in January 1969 in Aigaleo, a suburb of Athens.