Long Beach, CA (Top40 Charts/ Ouzo Power Official Website) On
Thursday March 31st,
George Sapounidis, dubbed "musical ambassador to the world", will be rocking the house at Montreal's Club Lambi with his band, Ouzo Power. They'll be celebrating the launch of their new CD, Ouzo Power's Greatest Hits Vol. 1.
George is a rock bouzouki-playing polyglot with Greek roots who also happens to be a singing sensation in China. The Chinese call him their "Elvis". His day job is with Stats Can. He holds a PhD in statistics.
CBC icon Shelagh Rogers said he was a troubadour savant. He performs everything from rock infused Greek folk songs to traditional ballads in a dozen languages. With his gentle charisma and unbridled enthusiasm
George can loosen up the stiffest crowd and melt the most cynical of hearts. One concert fan swooned, "You look like an ecstatic Greek god!"
A love of the blues and rock has come together on this CD in a rock infused interpretation of Greek Rebetika. It's a subversive music of protest and of raw human emotion, a music of the despised and repressed Greek underclass or Rebetes, refugees fleeing the Greco-Turkish war of the early 1900's. Forced into slums and shanty towns, they found escape in the hash dens of the underworld and like the blues culture of Harlem, Rebetika music was coded non conformist music, almost disappearing in the 1950's but emerging again in the 1960's with a new generation of young people protesting Greece's military dictatorship.
George is a self-declared 21st century Rebetis, a non conformist, an intercultural musical pied piper, subject of two international documentaries and two-time Olympic torch bearer.
This multi-talented musical chameleon and his band will perform a musical fusion of their about- to-be-launched CD that reinterprets and rejuvenates the original character of the Greek blues, combining Greek bouzouki and lyrics enhanced with a rock groove of electric guitar, bass and drums.
In forming Ouzo Power,
George pulled together three of Canada's top back-up musicians:
Stuart Watkins, Fred Guignion and Ross Murrary.
Artemis & co. is a Montreal-based duo that masterfully blends Greek and Mediterannean melodies with touches of jazz and swing. The fresh sound and charismatic presence of Artemis Lagopoulos (vocals) and Petros Plarinos (keyboard) transports, captivates and inspires audiences across Montreal and beyond.
Thursday March 31 2011 8:30pm
Club Lambi Montreal
4465 Boulevard Saint-Laurent (Mont Royal)
613.883.5307
Subway: Station Mont-Royal
Doors 7:30pm Tickets $15
Opening Act: Artemis & co.
