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Lefteris Hapsiadis (Λευτέρης Χαψιάδης born October 23rd, 1953) is a contemporary Greek lyrics author, a poet and a writer of novels. In the last thirty years he has written various poems, three novels and also lyrics for 525 songs (registered with AEPI) in the contemporary Greek rebetika, λαικα (pop music) and ελαφρα (light music) genres. He has collaborated with various music composers, and has occasionally worked as a record producer. Among those, he has often worked with Christos Nikolopoulos with whom he has had a number of popular records (including Μια ειναι η ουσία - One matter counts, and Κάποια, κάπου, κάποτε - Some woman, somewhere, sometime). Together they also created and produced a CD with 12 songs (December 1986), for which they were able to assemble together 11 popular Greek performers, including Dalaras, Alexiou, Dionysiou, Parios, and Mitsias. Nikolopoulos performed one of the songs in the CD as well, his first public singing performance ever. The CD was launched as "Τραγούδια για τους φίλους μου" - Songs for my friends.. Other quite well known performers of Hapsiadis pop songs were Stelios Kazantzidis, Glykeria and Manolis Aggelopoulos.

Life

Lefteris Hapsiadis was born in October 1953 in Feres, and lived during his early life in Koila, both agglomerations located in the Greek Prefecture (Νομός) of Evros. This is the most north-eastern region of Greece, bordering with Turkey in the east, and with Bulgaria in the north. Hapsiadis likes to refer to Koila as his 'Paradise on Earth', and nowadays he spends a major part of his life there. His family originates from Pontos; this is the area in the north of present day Turkey, along its Black Sea coast. To this day Hapsiadis has been quite loyal to his Pontos origins and throughout his career he has undertaken various artistic initiatives to try to preserve the cultural heritage of his ancestors' soil. Such work includes the production of three records with Kazantzidis in the Pontos dialect, as a tribute to its special sound and style. Hapsiadis is quite knowledgeable of the Pontos Greek dialect that he learned from his parents and grandmother in Koila.

He attended high school in Alexandroupolis, the administrative capital of Evros. For this purpose his entire family moved to town from Koila. During that period his father owned a kiosk (περίπτερον), typical of Greek city landscapes, where passers-by came to purchase various items, newspapers, magazines, pocket books, cigarettes, souvenirs, postcards, etc. Hapsiadis helped his father by working at the kiosk during several hours a day, when free from school and homework. This gave him the opportunity to often read the newspapers, books, and magazines; it helped him grow his early appetite for the Greek sound of Rebetika, a.k.a. the music of manges, members of a sort of inner city and urban slums gangs of the early 20th century. In a period when most of his schoolmates enjoyed the pop and rock music genres of the West, Hapsiadis was seeking to find out about little known events and details surrounding rebetika songs, their performers and their lyrics. He developed a habit of collecting rebetika lyrics and writing them down in a notebook as his favorite pastime. These were his start-up days of his future career as a rebetika songs writer.

For a short time he attended college in Patra, in the department of Biology, but only for six months, before he dropped off and got entirely absorbed within the professional world of rebetika in the Greek Capital. He accidentally met one evening Giorgos Dalaras, and through him he later built close personal relationships with more key players of the Greek pop music industry. Names include Lefteris Papadopoulos, a widely known Greek lyrics writer, the then young composer Christos Nikolopoulos, and many popular Greek pop singers Stelios Kazantzidis, Stratos Dyonisiou and Manolis Aggelopoulos. He also became close friends with Vassilis Vassilikos, a prominent novel writer. Vassilikos became internationally known by his "Z" novel, a story about the assassination of Lambrakis, a leftwing political activist in the mid 60ies. The novel was later made to a movie as part of a trilogy by Greek Director Costa Gavras, with Yves Montand in the leading role. In his first novel, Hapsiadis devoted a chapter to Vassilikos' life, about which Vassilikos later told Hapsiadis that he considered to be his most interesting biography written by an author other than himself.

Literary works

In addition to poems and song lyrics Hapsiadis recently wrote three novels. He only lately decided to focus on writing novels and had his first three produced in the last 5 years. All of them are largely autobiographic in nature with many details about events that actually took place and form part of the history of modern rebetika. His first two novels were "Η ζωη μου τραγούδι το τραγούδι ζωη" (My life (is) a song, the song (is) life) and "Ο αλήτης άγγελος" (An angel vagabond) . Although much of his writing is based on real life events, locations and names of personages, at the same time the author packages and presents those as elements of a plot in a "fiction" storyline. His third novel is scheduled for release end of October 2010.

As a self-taught author, Hapsiadis creates unusual plots wherein Greek music industry VIPs participate as plot personages. In his books, the heroes maintain their real life names; however, Hapsiadis uses the name Λέλος (Lelos) instead of Λευτέρης to represent himself as the leading actor in his plots. All three novels, written is simple everyday spoken Greek, without many of the usual attributes and techniques used by many professional writers, read rather fluently, and they can be typically consumed by a reader in a matter of hours. Another unusual element in his writing is the fact that he often mixes lyrics and poems within his regular text blocks, either to support his arguments or for reasons of historic significance added to the described events. All his novels offer valuable historic information and insights in the evolution of rebetica from the times of Markos Vamvakaris and Vassilis Tsitsanis (pre and post war WW2) to this day. The scores of events described, in many of which he himself participated as one of the players, is quite extended, and his recollection of details quite impressive. With a few scarce exceptions, Hapsiadis avoids criticism of his real life personages, however, on occasions, he is being critical of himself and his own weaknesses.

Songs

Per the generally accepted public opinion his most popular song lyrics were "Μια ειναι η ουσία" (One matter counts) that he wrote upon a Nikolopoulos music score during the mid eighties, in the beginning of his lyrics writing career. The song was originally performed by Haris Alexiou and later, following its gained popularity, by more performers, in studio and/or live performances, incl. Giorgos Dalaras (Link to Live Performance at the Odeion of Herodes Atticus - Athens )

Μία είναι η ουσία:
δεν υπάρχει αθανασία

Να 'σουνα, Θεέ μου, πότης
να σωθεί η ανθρωπότης,
στο μεθύσι σου απάνω
να μαχαίρωνες το Χάρο.

The lyrics playfully deal with immortality, whereby the author admits that nothing is immortal and begs Almighty God to eliminate Death for good, after the former had a few drinks first. The lyrics are used in a hilarious passage in his second novel, when the author dies and struggles to get into Paradise, but comes across a rather annoyed St-Peter, who didn't seem to have liked the song lyrics of his "Μια ειναι η ουσία" song at all. That passage is quite amusing. Curiously enough, although it describes the hero's termination of life and his travel to heavens, it sort of deprives easily intimidated readers of the fear of death itself.

His most popular song performed by Giorgos Dalaras, also a close personal friend, was Κάποια, κάπου, κάποτε . Hapsiadis often admitted to friends that he feels deeply connected with all his song lyrics; however, he inevitably shows extra affection to a select number of those that were inspired by authentic events in his lifetime, and by his intimate personal emotions during such moments. Among these songs are two refering to the country of his youth, the towns of Alexandroupolis and Orestiada, in the far north of the Evros Prefecture. It is generally known in Greece that the border regions of the country, especially Greece's eastern border with Turkey, are the least desirable areas for young Greeks to serve their country during their military service. As a young kid, working at his father's kiosk, Hapsiadis watched many pitiful soldiers passing by, feeling miserable about themselves and cursing their 'bad' fortunes for being dropped by the army in such desolate and risky geographies. In addition, until recent years, Greek GI soldiers (πεζικό) were treated as second rank citizens in the towns and villages of Evros, as many among them would admit to this day. Unless they enjoyed a military rank of some sort, GIs wouldn't be typically admitted inside many public venues, and many local businessmen would prefer to live without GI's entering their businesses. Hapsiadis was inspired by this to write two of his most moving songs, Αλεχανδρούπολη μεριά, originally performed by Δημήτρης Μητροπάνος, and Ορεστειάδα , performed by Στέλιος Διονυσίου and Πλούταρχος.

Songs for my friend

(Tracks of the CD Τραγούδια για τους φίλους μου - s)
by Nikolopoulos and Hapsiadis, 1986

1. Moiazoume with Manolis Mitsias
2. An teleione i zoi with Stratos Dionysiou
3. Pos borei with Eleni Vitali
4. Etsi s'agapisa with Dionysis Theodosis
5. Fovamai with Dimitra Galani
6. Kapoia kapou kapote with Giorgos Dalaras
7. Kallitera Eleftheros with Yannis Parios
8. To Diavolaki with Haris Alexiou
9. Tora pou efiyes with Litsa Diamanti
10. Oi dromoi tis anatolis with Xristos Nikolopoulos
11. Me xromata ki'aromata with Mary Vassou
12. Otan xoreveis matia mou with Manolis Aggelopoulos

Honors

During his 25 year long career as a lyrics writer, Hapsiadis achieved a number of Golden and Platinum record awards and occasionally he has been publicly recognized for his contribution to the Greek Popular Music by the Prefecture of Evros and Municipalities of Alexandroupolis and Feres with organized concerts dedicated to his song-lyrics successes.

See also

• Mangas
• Rembetiko – a film by Costas Ferris

External links

• Stelios Kazantzidis: Ta zeibekika at Music Corner
• World News: Glykeria - Older Videos
• Thrakinea - 3 June 2009
• Interview with Nikolopoulos at Icona
• Lyrics of 158 of his songs
• Rebetiko On-line Brief introduction in Greek and English, and a large photo collection.]

Category:Greek lyrics writers Category:Greek poets Category:Greek writers Category:1953 births