Paulos Alexiou

At a very young age he was eagerly asking from his parents to buy him a music instrument. Despite his love for music, he entered the music scene only by mere coincidence. He took his first music lessons by his English teacher’s wife who played the organ in the Catholic Church. He was so excited that she decided to teach him for free! But he did not have the money to buy an organ so he was ‘’obligated’’ to learn the guitar. It was the time that many musical bands made their appearance. Each neighbourhood had one or two bands. He discovered the magnitude of Jimmy Smith, the greatest jazz-blues organ player , by his teacher who also introduced him to John Mehigan ‘s harmony. Then Paulos took interest in rock. Up to the age of 16 he played with various bands and from the age of 17 he starts to perform professionally participating in concerts of big orchestras like “Giannini”, ”Dolce Vita”, “Solistes” and many more.

This was the time where Paulos started the recording business at music studios. He is performing together with the group “Harlems” in the dance hall “VIPS”, he plays for the the group “Vikings” in their music release “Katerin” and occasionally assembles George Trantalidis, Lakis Zois and George Filipidis to play together Jass and Rock music in various clubs. The reputation of the small band is spreading and reaches even to the island of Rhodes! Paulos Alexiou was present at the raising of the band “Peloma Pokiou”. Vlassis Bonatsos is mediating so that he starts cooperation with Stavros Xarchakos and performs for him in studios and concerts for the theatrical work “12 Mines Kalokairi”. Later on he departs to work in the island of Spetses with a small band he created with Alexandros Karandas (Guitar), a german drummer and a swiss bass player! But all this comes to a stop as he has to join the greek military force on October of 1970.

He is enlisted to serve in Chios and Kalamata but after a year he returned to Athens as he was appointed to play as a pianist for ADSEN. There he meets George Melekis who is making him a business proposal to join the band “Charms”. He accepts and in the meantime finishes his courses in theoretical music and starts harmony lessons with Ainian. One week before his discharge from the army, he departs to the United Kingdom! There he conceives new music sound inspirations and studies a lot. He had the impression that English people behaved racistly to Greek Rock Musicians. For this reason he accepted the proposal of the drummer Chr. Stasinopoulos to perform together touring France in Spring of 1973, but these tours eventually never took place…

So after all these, Paulos Alexiou is obliged to return to Greece and starts to work with the band “Mand” in the island of Rhodes. In the meantime he has a new business cooperation proposal from the band “Charms” in order to join them for the upcoming “Thessaloniki Festival Competition”. He accepts and they compete with the song “Na meinoume panta paidia” (G.Melekis – K. Rouvinetis) and they win the 2nd place! This concludes to the recording of the successful LP with same name. In late 1973 he starts his music composing career, creating the music for the song “Einai o Theos” with lyrics of G.Papadopoulos. Despite that, he continues to perform with the band “Charms” to Hilton Hotel until 1975 while this genre of music starts to decline.

Paulos Alexiou continues to compose in studio without caring to give his work for business but just for his own inspiration counterpointing with K.Klabbas. This was the time where the emerging group “Socrates” release the song “Fos” together with Vagelis Papathanasiou. As they came to Greece they were eagerly searching for a keyboard player and Trantallidis makes a proposal to Alexiou. Paulos eagerly accepted it and they started to do rehearsals to various places with the prospect to do a career abroad as “Socrates” songs had appealing also outside Greece. Paulos is performing with “Socrates” for five consecutive years! Later on around 1980, the band tried to be more compacted and so changed label from Polygram to Minos, changed the repertoire and their song style inserting more Greek elements to their music and dropping some Hard Rock aspects. Under these new facts, the experienced musicians release the “Waiting for Something”, where Paulos Alexiou participates as a composer of the best seller songs “Most People I Know” and “Endless”.

During this period, Paulos Alexiou starts his instrumental work for various well known releases such as those of R.Williams, N.Konstantopoulou, L.Jordanelli, A.Konstantinou and many more. As they say, time is an enemy of music bands and as it passed, “Socrates” is disbanded….Paulos Alexiou continues his music career cooperating with musicians like G.Vogiatzis, T.Voskopoulos, Marinella, V.Mosholiou, Tz.Vanou, El.Vitali, Phil.Nikolaou, P.Papadopoulou, D.Kontolazos, Dakis, D.Galani, Th.Andreadis, El.Dimou, X.Klynn, B.Lavinas, M.Lidakis, Konstantina, A.Protopsalti, Ch.Maragozi, S.Rouvas, and many more. He has participated in concerts with G.Spanos, K.Chatzis, M.Plessas, G.Chatzinasios. and others.

His music career is also expanding to more unconventional and sophisticated places as he attended the unsurpassable music work for Epirus, “Epirus tis Pentatonias”, where the Polyphonic of Vagelis Kotsios renders his song “Lemonanthous se stolisa” (G.Lekakis Lyrics). Solely as a music composer is continuing to write for Chryso, Sozos, Lymberopoulos, N.Sfakianakis