One of Greece’s most recognizable voices, Dimitris Mitropanos died
today, April 17 2012. Mitropanos suffered a heart attack and he was
rushed to the hospital where doctors stabilized his condition, but then
he suffered a pulmonary edema from which he died.
Mitropanos was born on April 2nd 1948 in the city of Trikala in
northwest Thessaly where he lived until the age of 16. He began his
musical career in 1964.
Mitropanos worked with some of the best known Greek composers, such
as Mikis Theodorakis,Stavros Xarhakos, Madra Mandicencio, Manos
Hadjidakis, Marios Tokas and Thanos Mikroutsikos,and had been one of the
top performers of Greek popular music for over four decades.
Mitropanos was known to be a heavy smoker, which is evident from the
way his voice has progressively changed over the course of his career.
Recently the Greek singer was hospitalized with serious health problems
but he was feeling better after his exit from the hospital.
From an early age, Mitropanos, worked summers to help his family
financially. First as a waiter in his uncle’s restaurant and later at
ribbon cutting wood. After the third grade of junior high, in 1964, he
went to Athens to live with his uncle. Before finishing high school he
began working as a singer.
At the same age, after the encouragement of Grigoris Bithikotsis,
whom he met at a gathering of his uncle’s company, where he sang, he
visited Columbia. There, Takis Lampropoulos introduced him το Giorgos
Zampetas, with whom will work alongside at “Ksimeromata”. Dimitris
Mitropanos considers Giorgos Zampetas as a great teacher and a second
father to himself. As stated, “Zambetas is the only man in music
which helped me without expecting anything. With all my other colleagues
they got something and gave something“.
In 1967, Mitropanos records his first album with the song
“Thessaloniki”. This followed the recording of “Chameni Paschalia”, a
song that was censored by the Greek military junta thus never released.
In the course mapped out on the street of folk art song, 1972 is a
milestone. The composer Dimos Moutsis and the lyricist and poet Manos
Eleftheriou release “Agios Fevrouarios” with Mitropanos and Petris
Salpeas as the song’s performers, marking a milestone in Greek music. In
July 1999, Mitropanos and Moutsis will meet again on stage at the
“Odeon” with Dimitra Galani and the soprano Julia Souglakou for two
nights at the Athens Festival. The concerts were recorded live and
released in a double CD two months later. George Katsaros’s “The Road to
Cythera” and Giorgos Hatzinasios’s “Ta Sinaxaria” follow suit, projects
of high quality with a high profile in Greek society.
In a long career in the Greek music industry, Dimitris Mitropanos
collaborated with leading artists of the Laïko and Éntekhno music.
Giorgos Zampetas, Mikis Theodorakis, Dimos Moutsis, Apostolos Kaldaras,
Takis Mousafiris, Christos Nikolopoulos (“Pare Apofaseis” with lyrics by
Lefteris Papadopoulos), Yannis Spanos were composers with whom
Mitropanos collaborated, building a career intertwined with the Laïko
tradition, until the late 1980s.
In 2010, Mitropanos performed a North American Tour for the first
time in over 10 years since his last visit to the United States. During
his tour, he performed a concert on July 1, 2010 at Radio City Music
Hall in front of a near capacity crowd.
He performed many of his famous
songs that were written in the earlier stages of his career as well more
recent songs that continue to be popular among Greeks, such as “Ρόζα,”
“Πάντα γελαστοί,”Tα Λαδαδικα,” and many more. Mitropanos concluded his
concert with a passionate performance of his famous song “Αλίμονο,” with
all in attendance giving him a standing ovation as he walked off the
stage.
Following his performance at Radio City, Mitropanos
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