From Aphrodite’s Child to his solo career — everything about him.
Written by Yusif Babayev
The date was the 14th of June, 1985. Everything seemed to be in order at Ellinikon International Airport in Athens. TWA Flight 847, arriving from Cairo, had landed, and preparations were underway for its onward journey to Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Rome. Passengers took their seats, and the aircraft took off in the morning. However, not long after departure, the plane was hijacked.
There were 147 people on board, and among them was Demis Roussos. His birthday was the next day, the 15th. On the second day of the hijacking, the Greek government released Ali Atwa, an alleged accomplice of the hijackers. In return, the hijackers released Demis Roussos and four other Greek passengers in Beirut. They were later flown back to Athens on a special flight. Hundreds of people—family members, press representatives, and Roussos fans—greeted them at the airport. The incident caused a huge sensation. In a brief statement to journalists, Demis Roussos described it as a very tense and traumatic experience. He also expressed his hope that all the remaining passengers would return safely.
Let’s rewind the tape and start from the very beginning.
Demis Roussos was born on 15 June 1946 in Alexandria, Egypt. His father, George Roussos, was a classical guitarist and an engineer, and his mother, Olga, performed with her husband in a Greek amateur theatre group in Alexandria.
From a young age, Roussos began taking music lessons and joined the Byzantine choir of the Greek Church in Alexandria. In his early years, he was influenced by jazz, traditional Arabic, and Greek Orthodox music. His family lost their property during the Suez Crisis in 1956 and decided to emigrate to Greece.
At the age of 17, Roussos joined the band called Idols, formed in Greece in the early 1960s by local young musicians. Here, he met Evángelos Papathanassíou (later known as Vangelis) and Loukas Sideras. The band’s main purpose was to prepare young vocalists and musicians for experience. Demis Roussos was the vocalist. Unfortunately, the band does not have an official album or well-known tracks.
Following this, he joined another cover band, the Athens-based group We Five, as a vocalist. We Five was a band with limited recognition in Greece.
In 1967, the three friends who knew each other from the Idols came together to form a band performing pop, psychedelic, and progressive rock. Vangelis Papathanassiou was the keyboardist and main composer, Loukas Sideras played drums and rhythm, and Demis Roussos was the lead vocalist. They were joined by guitarist Silver Koulouris, who was already relatively well-known within the Greek music scene. Vangelis and Loukas Sideras knew him from music studios and local clubs.
The group’s first recording was for George Romanos’s album In Concert and in Studio. They performed on four songs here and were credited as “Vangelis and his Orchestra”. In the same year, the band also recorded a two-song demo and submitted it to Philips Records.
In 1967, Greece fell under a right-wing dictatorship, prompting the band to relocate to London, which seemed a more favourable environment for their music. However, the plan faltered. Guitarist Silver Koulouris had to remain in Greece to complete his military service, and the remaining three members, while travelling to London, ended up stranded in Paris due to a lack of proper work permits and the protests associated with the May 1968 events.
In Paris, the band signed a contract with Mercury Records, and the unnamed group was christened Aphrodite’s Child by American producer and music manager Lou Reizner. The band released their second single, “Rain and Tears.” The song, composed by Vangelis with lyrics by Richard Francis, became famous overnight in France and several other European countries, thanks to Demis Roussos’s spectacular vocal performance.
Despite being sung in English, the song topped the hit charts across Europe. The single sold over one million copies and was awarded a Gold Disc. In October of the same year, the band released their first album, End of the World.
To record their second album, the band travelled to London and worked at the Trident Studios. The album’s first single, “Let Me Love, Let Me Live,” was released in November, followed by the album It’s Five O’Clock in January 1970. The record featured numerous successful ballads, including the title song, as well as songs spanning various genres, including country rock.
After the second album, the band began touring again, yet cracks began to appear. Vangelis did not join the tours, preferring to stay in Paris and write music for Henry Chapier’s film “Sex Power.” Nikos Papathanassiou, Vangelis’s brother, replaced him as the keyboardist for live performances and television programmes. The band toured Spain and Italy, again without Vangelis, with Harris Halkitis filling the keyboard role.
In late 1970, the band began to record a musical adaptation of the Biblical Book of Revelation; the album was titled 666. Silver Koulouris had finished his Greek army duty and rejoined the band. However, relations between the band members had begun to sour, and the slow, methodical writing process of the album worsened the situation. The music composed by Vangelis leaned more towards psychedelic and progressive rock than what the band had done before. This did not sit well with the other members, who wanted to continue with the band’s previous pop, soft rock style.
By the time 666 was released in June 1972, the band had already disbanded. Although the album was their most ambitious and accomplished work, internal disagreements had ultimately led to their dissolution.
The three friends had each started their solo careers. Sideras had limited success in his solo career; he released two albums and four singles after the band broke up. Koulouris, however, occasionally collaborated with Roussos and sometimes with Vangelis, while Vangelis and Roussos would also work together again on several projects later in their solo careers.
Demis Roussos’s solo career began in 1971 with his first single, “We Shall Dance” (with Sideras on drums), and his debut solo album, On the Greek Side of My Mind. This album and single were successful in several European countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, and Germany. The melodic pop and Greek music elements featured on the album highlighted Roussos’s charismatic vocals and led to his recognition as a solo artist.
In 1973, Demis Roussos achieved international fame with the single “Forever and Ever” and the album of the same name. This album topped the hit charts in many European countries, and his melodic ballads, especially “My Friend the Wind,” were loved by a wide audience.
In the first half of the 1970s, Roussos was already a very popular and beloved artist in the Soviet Union and Europe, yet he remained largely unknown in the United Kingdom. For some reason, his fame had crossed continents but failed to reach the British Isles. This caught the attention of BBC TV producer John King, who, in 1976, made the documentary The Roussos Phenomenon. The documentary attracted the attention of people on the island. Philips Records released a four-song EP with the same name. This marked the beginning of Demis Roussos’s massive success in the United Kingdom. “Forever and Ever,” “Sing an Ode to Love,” “So Dreamy,” and “My Friend the Wind” were the songs included on the EP. This EP reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, making it the first time in history that an EP had topped the UK singles chart. The song “Forever and Ever,” which could not enter the UK chart when first released, became his first big hit in the UK when re-released with this EP.
As I mentioned above, Roussos was also very popular in the Soviet countries. “Goodbye My Love, Goodbye,” “Forever and Ever,” and “Far Away” were some of his most beloved songs. However, there is one song of his in the USSR that did not achieve huge success in Europe when it was released, only managing to enter the hit charts at lower positions in a few countries. There will never be another song like this; no one will love the song the way the USSR did. Now it’s time to reveal the song, if you haven’t already started to sing it: “From Souvenirs to Souvenirs.” Written by Alec R. Costandinos and Stélios Vlavianós, this song is the first to come to mind when Roussos is mentioned in the Soviet countries.
A Greek version of the song, performed by the Greek singer Marinella, was released the year it first came out, but that version was not nearly as popular. There is also a German version of this song, “Mein Leben ist ein Souvenir,” performed by Roussos himself.
The song also has several Russian-language covers. Demis Roussos’s original version was covered a year after its release by Zhanna Bichevskaya. This version, titled “Risuyut Malchiki Voynu” (“Boys Draw War”), had lyrics written by Andrey Bogoslovsky. In 1977, the band Krasniye Maki covered “From Souvenirs to Souvenirs.” This version, titled “First Love,” became extremely popular in Russia. At that time, it was the most chosen song by young people who wanted to sing with a guitar, and it was played in all the discos.
When Roussos first performed in the USSR in the 1990s, he had initially omitted the song from his setlist, believing it was not a universal hit. When radio presenter Boris Barabanov spoke with Roussos and learned that he would not perform this song at the concert, he explained to him that if he left the stage without singing this song, audience would be disappointed and would not let him leave the stage without singing. And so, he performed “From Souvenirs to Souvenirs” at the concert.
The documentary The Roussos Phenomenon successfully introduced him to the UK, and the EP marked his first British success. The purpose of this article, likewise titled The Roussos Phenomenon, is to acquaint younger generations with this forgotten, extraordinary artist and to revive quality in an era dominated by banal hits. Perhaps, in this endeavour, we too will succeed.