Dimitris Mitropanos was a Greek singer, one of the most important voices of the Greek pentagram, with an important path in the field of folk songs.
Dimitris Mitropanos was born in Agia Moni, a district outside Trikala – where his mother came from – on April 2, 1948. After the third year of high school, in 1964, he went down to Athens to live with his uncle on Acharnon Street. Before finishing high school he started working as a singer.
At the same age, at the urging of Grigoris Bithikotsis, whom he met at a gathering of his uncle’s company, in which he sang, he visited Columbia. There, Takis Lampropoulos met Giorgos Zambetas, next to whom he will work in “Dawns”.
In 1967, Mitropanos recorded his first 45-track record, with the song “Thessaloniki”. The song “Lost Lilac” was previously recorded, but it was censored by the Junta and was never released.
In the path he carved on the path of popular artistry, 1972 is an important milestone: the composer Dimos Moutsis and the poet-lyricist Manos Eleftheriou release “Agios Februarios”, with performers Mitropanos and Petri Salpeas, marking a milestone in Greek music .
In July 1999, Mitropanos and Moutsis will meet again on stage at Irodeion with Dimitra Galani and the soprano Tsouglia Souglakou for two musical evenings as part of the Athens Festival. These concerts are recorded live and released on a double CD two months later. Followed by “The Road to Kythira” by Giorgos Katsaros and “The synaxaria” by Giorgos Hatzinassios, works of high quality but also of great impact in Greek society.
In his long career in Greek singing, Dimitris Mitropanos collaborated with the greatest creators of folk and art song. Giorgos Zampetas, Mikis Theodorakis, Dimos Moutsis, Apostolos Kaldaras, Takis Mousafiris (“We two” etc.), Christos Nikolopoulos (“Take Decisions” in lyrics by Lefteris Papadopoulos), Yiannis Spanos (“Mitropanos sings Spano”) were the composers with whom he was associated professionally, building a career intertwined with the Greek folk music tradition, until the end of the 80s.
The very important collaboration with Thanos Mikroutsikos with the album “Stou Aiona din Paraga”, with lyrics by Alkis Alkaiou, Kostas Lachas, Linas Nikolakopoulos and Giorgos Kakoulidis, is a shift of the performer to even more “artistic” routes, again maintaining his identity layman.
On September 10, 2009, he gave his first personal concert at the Herodes of Atticus Conservatory, with a program – a retrospective of 40 years of his artistic career. A historic concert, recorded and released on a double disc by Minos – EMI entitled “The songs of my life”. His last album was released in the summer of 2011 with the title “Here we are”, with music by Stamatis Kraunakis.
Dimitris Mitropanos passed away on April 17, 2012, at the age of 64.
Source: SanSimera.gr