The Intro
As is well documented, the summer of 1976 in the UK was full of long, lingering days of seemingly endless sunshine. And this was perhaps a factor in pushing Greek singer and unlikely sex symbol Demis Roussos to number 1 for a week that July. And with not one, or two, but four songs! For the first time in my blog, I’m reviewing an EP, rather than a single. A very rare occurrence in the singles chart.
Before
Artemios Ventouris-Roussos came from a Greek family but was actually born in Alexandria, Egypt on 15 June 1946. His father was a classical guitarist and both his parents were amateur actors. Roussos was raised in Alexandria and as a child he studied music and joined the Greek Church Byzantine choir. He was heavily influenced by jazz and traditional Arab and Greek Orthodox music. When his parents lost their possessions in the Suez crisis they moved to Greece, where his mother came from.
Roussos joined a band known as The Idols when he was 17. It was around this time he first got to know Evángelos Papathanassíou and Loukas Sideras, his future bandmates in Aphrodite’s Child. The former was better known as Vangelis. He then joined a covers band called We Five, based in Athens.
In 1967 Roussos, Papathanassíou, Sideras and Silver Koulouris became Aphrodite’s Child, a progressive, psychedelic rock band who released three LPs over five years. Their final release, 666 (1972) was a mammoth, mad double album opus based on the Book of Revelation, featuring the excellent, sprawling The Four Horsemen. Vangelis and Roussos remained friends after the split and would occasionally record together before and after Aphrodite’s Child, including the film score to Sex Power in 1970 and Magic in 1977.
With his impressive, distinctive tenor, Roussos was groomed for solo stardom before the band had split. His debut album On the Greek Side of My Mind (Fire and Ice) spawned the single We Shall Dance in 1971, which became a hit in Belgium and the Netherlands. Over the next few years he grew increasingly popular across Europe (and in size) but not in the UK. It took until 1975 for him to crack the chart here, with Happy to Be on an Island in the Sun, which reached five.
BBC TV producer John King became fascinated by the singer and so he made the documentary The Roussos Phenomenon. In 1976, Roussos’ UK label Philips decided to make the most of this interest and released Excerpts from ‘The Roussos Phenomenon’ EP, rounding up some of his best-known European hits that featured in the documentary. It became the first ever extended play record to reach number 1. Fans of Aphrodite’s Child be warned, you’ll find precious little that sounds like The Four Horsemen…
Reviews
First up is the most well-known Roussos track. Forever and Ever, sharing its title with a number 1 by Slik earlier this year, was originally released in 1973 as the title track to an album. It reached number 1 in Belgium and Mexico. It’s the highlight of the EP and despite being considered somewhat laughable by many, I have a soft spot for it. Yes the production, by Roussos himself, is a bit tacky but the backing vocalists in the opening create an earworm and Roussos’ voice, though not for everyone, is impressive. There are three reasons I like this opener. 1: My dad is known to burst into it with no warning, and only now do I know what the song is. 2: It’s famously used in Mike Leigh’s 1977 TV play Abigail’s Party (replacing José Feliciano’s Light My Fire from the theatre version). 3. One of my favourite singers, King Creosote, performs a hauntingly lovely cover. He has a similar vocal quality and it works great here.
Sing an Ode to Love is a keyboard-led ballad, originally the opener of his 1975 album Souvenirs. The proggy phasing sound in the first half is pretty interesting but once the military drums and choir kick in, it all sounds a bit too Eurovision for my liking.
So Dreamy was his most recent track, originating on 1976 album Happy to Be… It’s very, very similar to Forever and Ever, and inferior. The backing vocals are way too much and already I’m starting to tire of Roussos’ voice.
My Friend the Wind was released as a single in 1973, where it went to number 1 in Belgium and the Netherlands. The second best song here, it’s also the most traditionally Greek sounding of the four. It’s perhaps overlong but a nice tune.
After
In spite of, or maybe thanks in part to, Roussos’ flamboyant/ridiculous image, as seen above, the Greek giant had a few more UK hits, most notably the follow-up to this EP, When Forever Has Gone, which peaked at two. Actually, while on the subject of his image, if you ask me he looks pretty damn cool on the front of the EP at the top of the page. Anyway, Kyrila, released in 1977, was his last chart entry here, at 33. He continued to do well in Europe though, particularly Belgium and the Netherlands.
Roussos struggled with his weight throughout his life, particularly during the early-80s. In 1980 he weighed over 23 stone. He began a diet that enabled him to lose over eight stone in under a year and in 1982 documented his issues by co-authoring the book A Question of Weight.
In 1985 he spent his 39th birthday held hostage as he was among the passengers on TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Rome that was held by alleged Hezbollah terrorists. However Roussos and four other Greeks were released after five days while most of the others remained for 17 days. He was unharmed and even thanked his captors for a birthday cake at a press conference afterwards.
Roussos continued releasing music and touring throughout the rest of the 80s and the 90s, even though his hits tailed off everywhere. He returned to the UK for a tour on the back of Forever and Ever – Definitive Collection in 2002. It was noted that his voice was no longer the powerful force it once was. Roussos’ final album, Demi, was released in 2009. Greece mourned when one of their most famous exports died on 25 January 2015 from stomach, pancreatic and liver cancer, aged 68.
The Info
Written by
Forever and Ever/Sing an Ode to Love/My Friend the Wind: Stélios Vlavianós & Alec R Costandinos/So Dreamy: Robert Rupen & Stélios Vlavianós
Producer
Demis Roussos
Weeks at number 1
1 (17-23 July)
Trivia
Births
19 July: Actor Benedict Cumberbatch
Deaths
21 July (see below): Diplomat Christopher Ewart-Biggs
Meanwhile…
17 July–1 August: Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They take home three gold, five silver and five bronze medals.
21 July: Christopher Ewart-Biggs, UK ambassador to Ireland and civil servant Judith Cooke are killed by a Provisional IRA landmine at Sandyford, Co. Dublin.