THE GREEK LYRICIST AND COMPOSER AKIS PANOU

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. Our goal 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 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.