By Angelos Anastasiou
THE EGYPTIAN-BORN Greek singer Demis Roussos, 68, who sold more than 60 million records worldwide with a series of international hits in the 1970s and 1980s, has died in Athens after a long illness, it was announced on Monday.
Roussos, who died on Sunday, was part of the progressive rock group Aphrodite’s Child but was best known for his solo hits, among them “Forever and Ever”, “Goodbye”, “Quand je t’aime” and “Happy to Be on an Island in the Sun”.
“Forever and Ever” was used in British director Mike Leigh’s 1977 television play Abigail’s Party and Roussos was also the subject of a British documentary The Roussos Phenomenon in 1976.
Aphrodite’s Child bandmate Vangelis, in a statement quoted by the BBC, said: “Demis my friend. I have just arrived in London and I’ve been told that you decide to take the long voyage, I’m shocked because I can’t believe that this happened so soon.
“Nature gave you this magic voice of yours which made millions of people around the world very happy.”
Roussos was born on June 15, 1946, and was raised in Alexandria, Egypt, by his Greek engineer father and his Egyptian mother of Italian heritage. The family moved to Greece during the Suez Crisis and Roussos started his singing career at the age of 17 with a band called The Idols, where he first met Vangelis.
In a 2001 interview to the Cyprus Mail, Roussos, then in his early 50s, had already acknowledged the effect time was having on him.
“My voice these days is more mature,” he said. “I don’t sing at the pitch that I used to sing, but nobody does”.
Recalling his childhood, the singer reflected on his life on the road, from persecution in Alexandria circa 1960 to Greece and then France, alternating between the home of his ancestors and his adopted country.
“I always wanted to go into the artistic field,” he said. “I always felt I was somebody who doesn’t really have specific roots anywhere, and I think my life afterwards proved to be so. I could go anywhere – come and live here, no problem. For me it’s not important where you are; the important thing is who you are with, and how you are”.
A believer in a higher purpose to life, Roussos cited Buddhism as his guiding philosophy.
“I believe you come here with a mission. We’re not just nothing, and I believe there is a continuation of the soul. The soul has a purpose. We do not just become [what we are], we do not do whatever we do by accident. There is a reason.”
But in an eerie sign-off to the interview, Roussos gave away his secret: that, as much as he believed in karma, he also felt that life was meant to be lived for the sake of it.
“If I died tomorrow morning,” he had smiled, “I’m not going to die stupid. I saw everything. I lived everything. I had everything”.
