Apostolos Nikolaidis (singer)

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Apostolos Nikolaidis (1995)

Apostolos Nikolaidis ( Greek Απόστολος Νικολαΐδης , born June 30, 1938 in Drama ; † April 22, 1999 ) was a Greek singer. He was born in Drama and grew up in Thessaloniki . He was the first Greek musician who recorded the "forbidden" original Rembetiko songs with their original texts in the early 1970s during the time of the military dictatorship .

Beginnings and role models

As a young boy, Apostolos sang the popular songs he heard on the radio and which his mother, a seamstress, taught him. After graduating from school in 1951, he worked in construction with his father. At work he sang for himself and for those who listened to him on the construction sites.

When Apostolos heard Stelios Kazantzidis sing on the radio , whom he greatly admired, he recognized his calling. Much to his parents' chagrin, he bought a guitar, formed a trio, and began performing in the neighborhood. The young people sang the well-known songs of the time, mostly hits by popular singers such as Kazantzidis and Grigoris Bithikotsis .

After completing compulsory military service in 1962, he went to Athens to join Columbia Records . Columbia was the most important record company in Greece at the time and most of the country's successful musicians released their recordings there. He introduced himself to the managers of the label and got an appointment for the same week to audition in the historic studios in the Risoupoli district of Athens. When he got there, he noticed that Kazantzidis himself was there for a recording session. He waited excitedly for his role model to finish recording. Then, while Kazantzidis was still in the studio, he sang one of his hits, Duo portes ehi i zoi . Kazantzidis and Columbia were impressed, and Apostolos was offered to sign a three-year deal with the label.

While working for Columbia Records, Apostolos recorded songs by many of the most important composers in the music industry at the time, including Manolis Hiotis (with whom he was close friends and who directed him), Giorgos Lafkas , Vassilis Tsitsanis and Apostolos Kaldaras . The first song he recorded in 1962, Esi me pligoses varia , was written by Lafkas. At the same time Apostolos appeared at historical events, Anemona together with Lafkas and Kaldaras, Kouinta, To Hriso Vareli, and at Koulourioti's together with Kazantzidis and Marinella. He was first known to a larger audience.

Even though Apostolos got songs to record from many of the best composers of the time, there were generally no songs with hit potential and that bothered him. For this reason and also because of artistic differences of opinion, Apostolos left the record company when his contract expired in 1965. In 1967 he signed with Vendetta, a small record company founded by vocal stars Panos Gavalas and Poly Panou, who had also previously been with Columbia. His big hit with Vendetta was Asimorfoti in 1968 .

To America

Finally disappointed by the Greek record industry and looking for more promising opportunities, Apostolos went to North America in 1968. For a few years he worked with the respected bouzouki player Haris Lemonopoulos in Canada , worked his way to the USA and performed in clubs in Chicago and New York. In 1969 he recorded his first long-playing record, O Gialinos Kosmos , with Lemonopoulos on the bouzouki, continued to appear in classy nightclubs and was planning another album. It was common among Greek musicians overseas at the time to record albums with covers of recent Greek hits, but Apostolos had something else in mind.

Revival of Rebetiko

During his work in Greece in the 1960s, Apostolos had met and worked with many of the great Rembetiko composers , such as Markos Vamvakaris , Vassilis Tsitsanis , Giorgos Lafkas and Giannis Papaioannou . These composers had become famous in the 1940s and 50s, but in the profoundly changed musical landscape of the 1960s, they were painfully disregarded and even persecuted. From them Apostolos had learned the real traditional Rembetika songs, which arose from the poverty, struggle and suffering of the refugees from Asia Minor in the 1920s. Apostolos' idea was to record an album with these classic rembetika, with the original lyrics as intended by the authors. Some of these songs were never recorded with their original lyrics and were banned in Greece when the military regime came to power in 1967 .

The result was the album Otan Kapnizi O Loulas , which was released in 1973 and became a worldwide bestseller, as Greek record buyers queued up to buy it even in distant Japan. For the first few years after its release, the album was illegal in Greece. 8-track tapes with Otan Kapnizi O Loulas were regularly confiscated by the authorities from the car radios of Athens taxi drivers in 1973 and 1974.

Apostolos Nikolaidis is considered to be the first to pay tribute to the great composers of Greek rebetika music and to open the door for other Greek singers and groups who began to record this type of song and make it an integral part of their repertoires. Otan Kapnizi O Loulas is now considered a classic Greek album and has been sold over three million times worldwide - not counting the tens of thousands of bootlegs that have been produced and sold since the album was released.

1980s and 1990s

In 1982 it seemed to Apostolos that he was perceived as a stereotype of a singer who can only play cumbersome rebetika. He therefore recorded an album of love songs - Den Hriazonte Logia . The album didn't sell as well as Apostolos had hoped, but it did give him an opportunity to return to the type of music he had started with 20 years earlier.

Rebetike's Stigmes-Magika Tragoudia followed in 1983 on the VASIPAP label. From now on, many of the songs on this album became too often requested by the audience during his live performances and concerts. Kostas Papadopoulos, one of the most respected bouzouki players in Greece, worked with Apostolos on this album.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Apostolos appeared in various well-known nightclubs in and around Athens in addition to his record productions. However, he felt hampered by a lack of integrity and opportunities in the music business of that time and went back to New York in the mid-80s to perform again and perform newer song material in addition to his old classics.

Apostolos continued to perform in New York, Toronto, Houston, San Francisco, Vancouver, and Germany during the late 1980s and early 1990s. His numerous enthusiastic fans brought him sold out houses every evening. Now his steadfast followers also included many younger fans who had grown up with Apostolos and for whom Otan Kapnizi O Loulas had become one of their favorite albums in the long run.

In 1991 Apostolos Mia Vradia Me Ton released Apostoli - a live album of material that had been recorded in 1990 and 1991 during its legendary performances at Asteria, a well-known Greek noble nightclub in Astoria (borough of Queens ). The album was a success. The title Otan horevis to tsifteteli ( Horepse, horepse ) contained on it became a hit. For this success, Apostolos was awarded his second gold record in New York in 1993. The album was released in Greece in 1995 and Otan horevis to tsifteteli became one of the most played songs on radio and nightclubs that year.

Spurred on by success, and now an even more established and respected artist, Apostolos decided to return to Greece in the mid-1990s. Although the musical landscape of Greece had changed significantly since the 1980s, Apostolos found the general environment much more suitable for recording his music, performing, and moving forward with his work. He teamed up with Giorgos Manisalis - one of the great composers of Laika songs from the Golden Age of Greek music - and released two albums in 1996 and 1997.

In addition to the two new albums, Apostolos appeared in Thessaloniki in clubs and at concerts where there was only standing room. He promoted his work in radio and television interviews and answered questions about his past, present and future in a frank and direct way that was typical of him. During this time Apostolos also gave special concerts in Northern Greece, Cyprus and New York.

In 1998 Apostolos published Magia mou pou 'me Paoktzis , an ode in two titles to the PAOK Thessaloniki football team . In April 1999 Apostolos published Allagi Frouras , a collection of laika tragoudia with the feel of today.

Apostolos Nikolaidis died unexpectedly on April 22, 1999 in Athens of complications from cancer. For the new millennium he had planned a new regular appearance in a popular Athens nightclub, new song material and a live recording of the classic Rembetika songs with which he had become famous. At his request, his remains were brought to the United States and interred there.

Discography

1961-1967 (45 RPM singles)

1961-1964 1964-1966 1966-1967
  • Ena psihoulo storgis (recorded 1961, unpublished)
  • Tetia apagi na mou lipi (recorded 1961, unpublished)
  • Esi me pligoses varia (1962)
  • O magkas (1962)
  • Dromo perno (1962)
  • Hameni mou hara (1962)
  • Tora pia tipota de mas horizi (1962)
  • Toksera mia mera (1963)
  • I kafetzou (1963)
  • Giati na rotiso ton kosmo (1963)
  • To ematha-to ematha (1963)
  • O dais (recorded 1964, unreleased)
  • Min Akous Kanena (1964)
  • Ase me ston pono mou (1964)
  • Mavres ipopsies (1964)
  • Mono esi mehis niosi (1964)
  • Esena eho ki'afto me ftani (1964)
  • Mine sto spiti mas (1964)
  • Rota prota ti kardia mou (1964)
  • Krata to heri mou sfihta (1964)
  • Mi to pernis gia astio (1965)
  • As pethena sta psemata (1965)
  • Sti kardia mou ali de horai (1965)
  • Na to prosehis to pedi (1965)
  • Magia mou kanes (1965)
  • Ta dika sou ta hadia (1965)
  • Sighorese patera mou (1966)
  • Panagia mou ti eho pathi (1966)
  • Den se thelo gia gineka (1966)
  • Ise gia menane to pan (1966)
  • Stalamatia-stalamatia (1966)
  • Apo pote allakses glikia mou (1966)
  • Periplanomeno kormi (1966)
  • Ti ne afto pou sou simveni (1966)
  • Tamba toumba (1967)
  • Petradaki-petradaki (1967)
  • Lathos ekana megalo (1967)
  • Eho pikro parapono (1967)
  • O sosias tis agapis (1967)
  • Pos na se sighoriso (1967)
  • Krasi ke dakri (1967)
  • Plagiasa kato apo t 'asteria (1967)
  • Asimorfoti (1967)
  • Boemissa (1967)
  • Eimai apopse sta merakia (1967)
  • Rota prota ti kardia mou (1967)

1969–1983 (33 UPM albums)

  • O Gialinos Kosmos (1969)
  • Otan Kapnizi O Loulas (1973)
  • O Arhagelos (1975)
  • Ithela Namouna Pasas (1976)
  • Ston Adi Antamosane (1977)
  • Ta 12 Evagelia T'Apostoli (1979)
  • Den Hriazonte Logia (1982)
  • Rembetikes Stigmes-Magkika Tragoudia (1983)

1991–1999 (CD albums)

  • Mia Vradia Me Ton Apostoli Live (1991)
  • Ti Mou Thimises Torah (1996)
  • Na Haro Magkia (1997)
  • Magkia Mou Poume PAOKtzis (Single) (1998)
  • Allagi Frouras (1999)

Posthumous CD editions

  • Ta Rembetika T 'Apostoli - 3CD Collectors' Set (2002)
  • Gi Afto Ke Zo - 11 Unreleased Tracks (2005)
  • O Gialinos Kosmos - Remastered Collector's Edition (2007)

Web links