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From the back
cover of the UK LP of End of the World/Rain
and Tears:
Aphrodite's
Child, a group of three young Greeks, found a short cut to universal
fame by getting together and singing in English. Their first
recording with Philips Greece was received so well in the Anglo-Saxon
countries that a call went out from London for the three to be
brought over for more recordings.
Fate, however,
decreed that their headquarters were, for the time being at least, to
be in Paris, for on arrival at Orly Airport the news awaited them
that a strike in London prevented them from going there. Philips
producer Pierre Sbarro wasted no time. He decided to put them to the
test. He told them he wanted to record with them an adaptation of a
popular canon by Pachelbel, a 17th-century organist and composer. The
three accepted the challenge and tackled it forthwith. The result was
"Rain and Tears." Heard first on radio in 1968, it was
climbing the French hit parade within a few days, and the English and
American charts within a few weeks. One of their number, Vangelis
Papathanassiou, was responsible for the arrangement and the words
were written by a Frenchman, Boris Bergman.
Vangelis was
also responsible for the original get-together. He was leader of an
ensemble in Greece, and two of his friends, Demis Roussos and Lucas
Sideras were members of another group. The three one day discovered
that they had the same dream...of creating a real Byzantine
folk-group. They did and called themselves after Aphrodite, the
classical Greek goddess of beauty and love. |
