This book is about the understudied Greek songwriter Akis Panou (1933–2000), one of the most significant musicians in the history of laiko song, that is, a particular genre of popular music that flourished in the urban scene of Greece in the twentieth century. Ourgoal is to introduce the artist’s work to audiences beyond his homeland. While there is a certain amount of printed material regarding other significant composers of the genre, such as Markos Vamvakaris and Vassilis Tsitsanis, and a large number of publications on Greek popular song up to the mid-1960s, there is markedly little literature on the subsequent era—the era during which Akis Panou produced the bulk of his work. Moreover, the extant
sources on the artist himself are extremely few. The material that exists comes almost exclusively from online rather than printed sources and is fragmentary in nature. Our hope is that this book will serve as a small step towards ameliorating this state of affairs. No one of us, the authors, is a professional musicologist or ethnomusicologist. However, we have been immersed in the artist’s work as listeners and one of us as an amateur bouzouki 2 player, (bouzouki being the principal instrument used in laiko song), who loves to play and interpret, among other songs, Akis Panou’s compositions. This is how we developed a profound appreciation of and admiration for Akis Panou, as both a lyricist and a musicalcomposer, and so we are not writing this book as ‘objective’ Cartesian observers or as detached academics. It is our sincere passion for the artist’s work that ultimately brought the present volume into being.

Contents:

Acknowledgments
Table of contents
Preface
Prelude
Part I: The Greek Laiko Song
Part II: Akis Panou - The Songs
Part III: Akis Panou - The Poetry and the Music
- The Lyrics
- The Music
Appendix A: Common Dromoi in Greek Laiko
Appendix B: Common Rhythms in Greek Laiko
On Transliteration
Links on Part II Songs
Works Cited