Jack Oughton – Vangelis Biography, in brief.

A short foray into the secretive and accomplished life of one of the 20th century’s musical pioneers and a father of modern electronica.

Who’s the man?

Vangelis [born: March 29, 1943, Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou] - is a name that many people recognise but few can place. This could be down to his personal approach, he is an exceptionally private and modest man who over the years has done his best to shy away from fame even as his music has increasingly conquered the globe. Vangelis is a musician, composer, producer and arranger, born in Volos, a port city on the east coast of Greece. Volos among any things is known as the birthplace of mythical ancient Hero, Jason.

What has he done in music?

Vangelis started his professional musical career in the early 1960s, as the principle songwriter in a pop group dubbed The Formynx. The band was a commercial success, releasing nine hit singles before disbanding at the height of their career in 1966.

In 1968 Vangelis formed Aphrodite's Child, a progressive rock band, and although tensions with the band caused a split in 1971, the group’s two previous studio albums have now sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Vangelis was to collaborate with Aphrodite's Child's singer, Demis Roussos again, producing several albums and singles for him. In turn, Demis has contributed vocals to many of Vangelis' wildly different projects.

Around this time Vangelis was working on a number of solo undertakings, such as scoring a film titled Sex Power in 1970. In 1972, Vangelis to finished an album named Fais que Ton Rêve Soit Plus Long que la Nuit, inspired by the Paris student riots of 1968, these riots where extremely important, they were the beginning of a series of monumental social reforms in France. A more prosperous undertaking was Vangelis’ scoring of wildlife pictures made by French moviemaker Frédéric Rossif. The first was L'Apocalypse des Animaux, released in 1973.

In that same year Vangelis struck out as a solo artist. His first album was entitled Earth; which held similar sounds to his work with Aphrodite's child but started to show a lot more of his personal style, such as Greek ethnic musical influences. It featured a group of musicians, among them ex-Aphrodite's Child guitar player Silver Koulouris and songwriter Robert Fitoussi. This line-up, subsequently operating under the name Odyssey, brought out a single in 1974; Who, but this was Vangelis' only work with them.

Later in 1974, Vangelis was expected to join a different prog-rock band, Yes, after the exit of Rick Wakeman, the band’s keyboardist. Later it turned out that this was not to be, and after a few weeks of rehearsals Vangelis decided to part ways with Yes. The band later found a different keyboard player; Patrick Moraz, who subsequently linked up with the Moody Blues. Vangelis did, nevertheless, become friends with Yes’ singer Jon Anderson, and in the future would collaborate with him on many projects, mainly working together as the duo Jon & Vangelis.

Vangelis: Circa 1970

Where and what is he doing now?

Vangelis has been musically dormant over the last few years, and since he is such a reclusive figure, it is not widely known what he is doing these days. A recent article in April 2008 with Vimagazino magazine was described as being candid, but unfortunately it is written entirely in Greek and of this date I have not been able to get an English translation. His most musical recent activity was in 2007, with the release of 2 albums; the 25th anniversary edition re-release of the Blade Runner soundtrack, and the release of his score to the film El Greco.

Perhaps Vangelis’ most popular, or well known piece of music is the main title track from Chariots Of Fire. I have lost count of the number of slow motion video montages the song has accompanied. The track has been used for this so often that it has become a cliché, or a comedic device, accompanying exaggeratedly heroic slow-mo sequences, usually with someone winning something very important, often a sport that involves running.

Vangelis: Circa 2000. Epic beard faithfully retained.

How does he compose and record music?

Vangelis' compositional process is as unorthodox as the music he writes. Unable to formally read music, Vangelis was enrolled at a music school at a young age. However his independent streak showed even that early in his development, and he would often pretend he was reading the music, when actually recalling it from memory. Clearly he has done better than many of the classically schooled composers who followed the rules more closely, innovating musically on his own terms. In his own words, his approach is to take an idea and record onto as many keyboards as possible at the same time through his mixer. After the idea has been captured, individual tracks can be expanded upon or removed as needed. In this way he creates many parallel musical ideas in tandem, and chips away at them until the song emerges. This is a brilliant way to write music as it results in an excess of ideas that can be kept for different songs, or used for alternate versions of the original piece. The technique must be working for him, as he has created over 40 albums over his career so far and had numerous commercial successes.

Vangelis with his usual and amazing array of analogue hardware.

Album Recommendations:

Themes: This is a compilation album gathered from his compositional work for film. Although it is an excellent introduction to his style, it mainly draws from his commercial successes and ignores a huge portion of his work. However, I would recommend it to anyone new to Vangelis, as many of his film works are a lot easier to listen to than his earlier, or more experimental material. Notable tracks: Chariots Of Fire, Memories of Green, Hymn]

Blade Runner: This is the soundtrack to the fantastic and genre defining sci-fi opus, Blade Runner. Vangelis builds upon Ridley Scott’s dystopian, futuristic mood of the film with subtle, atmospheric synthesizer music, interspersed with haunting vocal lines and sound effects taken from the film. Overall the album is an amazing piece of work and has some nice jazz elements to it. Notable Tracks: End Titles, Blade Runner Blues, Wait For Me

1492: Conquest Of Paradise: This is an album which Vangelis composed for in a more traditional sense. The film was released on the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ fateful voyage, which resulted in the accidental discovery of America, and tells the story of this discovery. It is a majestic, sweeping, orchestral score, recorded and conducted with The English Chamber Choir. It makes great use of massed voices in chorus, and stirs my soul. Notable Tracks: Conquest of Paradise, Light and Shadow, Monastery of La Rabida

A Personal Musical Influence..

I have chosen to write an article on Vangelis as I find him to be an inspiring persona; a personal influence and a very gifted man to follow. Many would agree that he has made an incredibly important artistic contribution to music and culture, and he is an example of what hard work and talent in music can achieve.

His musical style has no doubt had an inspiration on my own writing. I still remember the day that a teacher played us the Blade Runner theme in Secondary School music class. We were supposed to contrast the style of music with other tracks on the tape, but I was too busy trying to gather the pieces of my blown mind together after about 30 seconds of the song. That was the day I learned to really love music, and set me down a path that changed my life’s focus forever. I still remember the surge of excitement that took me as I heard the famous bass line begin, and it was truly like nothing I had ever heard before.

Vangelis fans may enjoy the tracks Going Nomad and Grey, which can be listened to for free at http://www.myspace.com/xijmusic. They are an unintentional homage to the great man himself, using similar sounding synths, albeit written in my own style, and using different song structures and musical forms.

I and many others hope that Vangelis will start work on something new soon, if only we could persuade him!

Where is he now?