Apostolos Nikolaidis (singer)

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

Origins and role models

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

As Apostolos heard her sing on the radio Stelios Kazantzidis, whom he greatly admired, he realized his calling. To the chagrin of his parents, he bought a guitar, forming a trio and began to occur in the neighborhood. The young people sang the familiar songs of the time, mostly hit by popular singers like Kazantzidis and Grigoris Bithikotsis.

After he had completed the required military service in 1962, he went to Athens to Columbia Records. Columbia was then the most important Greek record company and most successful musicians of the country published their recordings there. He stood in front of the managers of the labels for the same week and got an appointment to audition in the historic studios in the district of Athens Risoupoli. When he arrived, he noticed that Kazantzidis itself was just at a recording session there. Excited, he waited until his model with the recording was finished. Then he sang while Kazantzidis was still in the studio, one of his hits, Duo portes ehi i zoi. Kazantzidis and Columbia were impressed and they offered Apostolos to sign a three-year contract with the label.

While working for Columbia Records, Apostolos songs took on many of the then most important composers of the music industry, including Manolis Hiotis (with whom he was a close friend, and it guided them ), Giorgos Lafkas, Vassilis Tsitsanis and Apostolos Kaldaras. The first song he recorded in 1962, Esi me pligoses varia, Lafkas had written. At the same time Apostolos occurred in historical events, anemona together with Lafkas and Kaldaras, Kouinta, To Hriso Vareli, and Koulourioti 's along with Kazantzidis and Marinella. He became known to a wider audience for the first time.

Although Apostolos songs got many of the best composers of the time to record, no songs with hit potential were there in general, and that bothered him. For this reason and also because of artistic disagreements Apostolos left the record company when his contract expired in 1965. In 1967 he signed for Vendetta, a small record label, founded by the singing stars Panos Gavalas and poly Panou, which had also been previously at Columbia. His big hit with Vendetta 1968 was Asimorfoti.

After America

From the Greek record industry eventually disappointed and looking for more promising opportunities Apostolos1968 went to North America. Some years he worked with the renowned bouzouki Haris Lemonopoulos in Canada, also worked in the U.S. before and appearing in clubs in Chicago and New York. In 1969 he recorded his first LP on, O Gialinos cosmos, with Lemonopoulos on bouzouki, stepped continue on in precious nightclubs and was planning another album. Among the Greek musicians overseas, it was customary to record albums with cover versions of current hits of Greek, but Apostolos had something else in mind.

Revival of rebetiko

For his work in the 1960s in Greece Apostolos was many of the great composers of rebetiko met and had worked with them, with Markos Vamvakaris, Vassilis Tsitsanis, Giorgos and Giannis Papaioannou Lafkas. These composers had become famous in the 40s and 50s, but in the profoundly changed the musical landscape of the '60s, they were disregarded painfully and even persecuted. Of them Apostolos had learned the real traditional rebetika songs that had emerged from poverty, struggle and suffering of the refugees from Asia Minor in the 20s. Apostolos ' idea was to record an album with these classic Rembetika, with the original texts, as intended by the authors. Some of these songs were never recorded with their original texts and were banned in Greece, as in 1967 a military coup regime to power.

The result was the album Otan Kapnizi O Loulas, was published in 1973 and became a worldwide bestseller since Greek record buyers were lining also in distant Japan, to buy it themselves. In the first years after its release the album in Greece was illegal. 8-track cassettes with Otan Kapnizi O Loulas were seized in 1973 and 1974 on a regular basis by the authorities from the car radios of the Athens taxi driver.

Apostolos Nikolaidis is considered the first, which has the great composers of the Greek rebetika music adds to the recognition and open the door for other Greek singers and groups that began to take these kind of songs and to make it an integral part of their repertoire. Otan Kapnizi O Loulas is now considered a classic greek album and has sold over three million copies worldwide - not counting the tens of thousands of bootlegs that have been produced and sold since the release of the album.

1980s and 1990s

In 1982 it seemed Apostolos, he is perceived as a stereotype of a singer who can play only cumbersome Rembetika. So he took on an album of love songs - the Hriazonte Logia. The album did not sell as good as Apostolos had hoped, but it gave him an opportunity to return to the kind of music with which he had begun 20 years earlier.

Rebetikes Stigmes - Magika Tragoudia followed in 1983 on the label VASIPAP. Many of the songs on this album were from now on in his live performances and concerts too often demanded by the audience wish titles. Kostas Papadopoulos, one of the most respected Greek bouzouki, worked with Apostolos on this album.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Apostolos stepped beside his plate productions in various well-known night clubs in and around Athens. He felt but hampered by a lack of integrity and of ways in the music business this time and went mid-80s back to New York in order to recur and in addition to his old classics to plead newer songs.

Apostolos had during the late 1980s and early 1990s still performed in New York, Toronto, Houston, San Francisco, Vancouver, and in Germany. His numerous fans gave him nightly sold-out houses. Now among his followers also fixed a lot of younger fans who had grown up with Apostolos and had become for the Otan Kapnizi O Loulas on duration of their favorite albums.

In 1991, Mia Apostolos Vradia Me Sound Apostoli out - a live album with material that had been taken with his legendary performances at Asteria, a famous Greek precious nightclub in Astoria (district of Queens ) in 1990 and 1991. The album was a success. The title contained therein Otan horevis to Tsifteteli ( Horepse horepse, ) was a hit. For this success Apostolos was awarded in 1993 in New York with his second gold record. The album was released in 1995 in Greece and Otan horevis to Tsifteteli was this year in radio and night clubs become one of the most played songs.

The success inspired, and now as more established and respected artists to Apostolos mid -1990 decided to return to Greece. Although the musical landscape of Greece had changed considerably since the 80s, Apostolos found the general area now much better suited to take his music to appear and move ahead with his work. He teamed up with Giorgos Manisalis together - 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 entered Thessaloniki in clubs and at concerts, where it was standing room only. In radio and television interviews, he campaigned for his work and answered questions about his past, present and future in a frank and direct style, which was typical of him. During this time, Apostolos also gave special concerts in North Greece, Cyprus and New York.

In 1998, Apostolos Magia mou pou 'me Paoktzis out an ode in two tracks on the football team PAOK Thessaloniki. In April 1999, published Apostolos Allagi Frouras, a collection of laika tragoudia all in today's feeling.

Apostolos Nikolaidis died unexpectedly on 22 April 1999 in Athens of complications of cancer. For the new millennium, he had planned a new regular gig at a popular Athenian night club, new song material and a live pick-up of the classical rebetika songs, with which he had become famous. His remains were brought to the United States and was buried there in accordance with his wishes.

Discography

1961-1967 (45 - rpm singles )

• Ena psihoulo storgis (recorded in 1961, unreleased)
• Tetia apagi na mou lipi (recorded in 1961, unreleased)
• Esi me pligoses varia ( 1962)
• Magkas O (1962)
• Dromo perno (1962 )
• Hameni hara mou (1962 )
• Tora pia tipota de mas horizi (1962 )
• Toksera mia mera (1963 )
• Kafetzou I (1963)
• Giati na rotiso ton kosmo (1963 )
• To ematha -to ematha (1963 )
• O dais (recorded in 1964, unreleased)
• Min akous kanena (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 sfihta mou (1964 )
• Wed to pernis gia Astio (1965 )
• As pethena sta psemata (1965 )
• Kardia mou Sti ali de horai (1965 )
• Well 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 )
• The 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 pou sou afto simveni (1966 )
• Tamba Toumba (1967 )
• Petradaki - Petradaki (1967 )
• Lathos ekana megalo (1967 )
• Eho pikro parapono (1967 )
• O Sosia 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 - rpm albums )

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

1991-1999 ( CD albums )

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

Posthumous CD editions

• Ta Rembetika T ' Apostoli - 3CD Collectors' Set ( 2002)
• O Gialinos cosmos - Remastered Collector's Edition ( 2007)