Greek rock

Music of Greece
General topics
Ancient music Byzantine music Opera Greek musical system Greek musical instruments Greek dances Worldwide
Genres
Church music (Byzantine) Classical music Ionian School Greek folk Laïko Rock Hip Hop Punk Greek New Wave (Neo kyma)
Specific forms
Contemporary Entehno Nisiotika Rebetiko Skiladiko
Media and performance
Music awards	Arion Awards MAD Video Music Awards Pop Corn Music Awards
Music charts	Greek Albums Chart Foreign Albums Chart Singles Chart
Music festivals	Athens Festival Epidaurus Festival Olympus Festival Thessaloniki Song Festival
Music media	Difono MAD TV (MAD World, Blue) MTV Greece
Nationalistic and patriotic songs
National anthem	"Hymn to Liberty"
Regional music
Related areas	Cyprus, Pontus, Constantinople, South Italy
Regional styles	Aegean Islands Central Greece Crete Epirus (polyphonic song) Ionian Islands Macedonia Peloponnese Thessaly Thrace

Rock and roll spread around the world in the 1950s and 1960s, entering Greece in the middle of the 1960s. Greek rock performers in the field include Kostas Tournas, Jimi Quidd (born Jimmy Hatzidimitriou, later member of The Dots and producer for Bad Brains), and Pavlos Sidiropoulos, the most important representative of Greek folk-rock and rock.

Greek rock (Greek: Ελληνικό ροκ, pronounced [eliniˈko rok]) originated in the early 1960s with the creation of several anglophone pop-rock bands such as The Forminx (which included composer Vangelis), The Idols and The Olympians. The late sixties saw the formation of Aphrodite's Child, one of the most important and successful Greek rock bands: with their album It's Five O'Clock (1969) they achieved worldwide fame. Another aspect of Greek rock in the late 1960s saw the release of the first albums of Dionysis Savvopoulos, who combined Greek folk-music with rock elements.

Greek rock first peaked in the early seventies, while Greece was still ruled by a military dictatorship. Bands included Socrates Drank The Conium (anglophone progressive rock), Nostradamos, Exadahtylos (political/satirical lyrics), Pelóma Bokioú (Santana-like Latin rock with Greek lyrics), Poll (folk with vocal harmonies, Greek lyrics).

Kostas Tournas is one of the pioneers of Greek rock. He is a singer and composer of many hits in the 1970s with a long career and a string of hits which continue to this day. His 1972 progressive-psychedelic solo album rock opera Aperanta Horafia (Infinite Fields) is considered a landmark of Greek rock and an act of resistance against the junta which ruled Greece at the time.

...
Wikipedia