Eleni Dimou

Eleni Dimou says that she grew up singing. In a 2019 interview with the Athens newspaper Amarysia, she remembered that her mother had a beautiful voice and that, as a primary-school pupil, she kept a small radio at her ear and often asked to go out into the schoolyard to listen to music. She later studied at the Athens Conservatory, taking lessons in diction and solfège. The actor Dimitris Horn, a friend of her family, recommended her to the composer Manos Hadjidakis.

Her start came at an evening for young creators at the Municipal Theatre of Piraeus, broadcast live by the Third Programme of Greek radio, where she sang with Dimitris Lekkas. She remembers shaking with stage fright. The nervous vibrato pleased Hadjidakis, who compared her to the Portuguese fado singer Amália Rodrigues. She then signed her first record contract, with Minos, and took part in the Thessaloniki Song Festival two years in a row: third prize in 1980 with Αν η καρδιά σου (If Your Heart) and first prize in 1981 with Μια αγάπη σαν κι αυτή (A Love Like This).

In the following decades she recorded many albums. Today she chooses a small number of appearances, usually in small music venues, because, as she explains, she wants to feel good on stage and never bored. During a period away from music she also wrote a novel, Όσα δεν είπαμε (What We Did Not Say), published by Livanis.

Dimou’s records belong mainly to Greek popular song of the 1980s and 1990s: love songs with strong melodies, sung in a deep voice with a recognisable slightly rough edge. She has said that, because she sang love songs, people called her the female Parios, after the singer Giannis Parios, and that she chose not to follow the path of a laïko singer.

Her first album, Έχω φίλους (I Have Friends, 1982), included five songs by Giannis Zouganelis. In 1986 she worked with Lakis Papadopoulos on Κατά βάθος… αλεπού (Deep Down… a Fox). In 1988 came Προσωπικά (Personal), with music by Giannis Spanos; the composer later entrusted her with a second album of his songs, Άκου λοιπόν (Listen, Then). The pianist Stefanos Korkolis has recalled that in the 1980s Dimou took him to meet Spanos so that he could propose arrangements for Προσωπικά. In 1990 she sang Μια στιγμή πανικού (A Moment of Panic) with Dionysis Tsaknis.

Titles from her career, such as Προσωπικά, Η ζωή είναι γυναίκα (Life Is a Woman) and Αντιθέσεις (Contrasts), are short and clear, which makes them a practical first contact with Greek words. In October 2019 she presented three new songs online, Κόσμε (World), 7 γραμμάρια (7 Grams) and Selfie, describing them as a preview of a vinyl record.

Dimou’s songs remain part of Greek radio, television tributes and live music evenings. In 2020 she sang Προσωπικά and Τραγούδι γενεθλίων (Birthday Song) on a MEGA programme hosted by Stefanos Korkolis. In December 2022 she began a large tribute to Giannis Spanos, Τα τραγούδια λένε πάντα την αλήθεια (Songs Always Tell the Truth), at the Sfinga music venue in Athens, and it continued into January 2023.

For learners: listen to a recording of Προσωπικά and write down the title. Then make two Greek sentences about a recording day: Σήμερα τραγουδώ (Today I sing) and Σήμερα ηχογραφώ ένα τραγούδι (Today I record a song). Notice the difference: τραγουδώ is what the voice does, while ηχογραφώ means keeping the sound as a recording.

• After Hadjidakis compared her to Amália Rodrigues, she went looking for Rodrigues records in Athens shops and found that their voices really were similar.
• She won prizes at the Thessaloniki Song Festival in two consecutive years: third in 1980 and first in 1981.
• Besides singing, she has written a novel, Όσα δεν είπαμε (What We Did Not Say).
• In a 2024 television interview she said that an artist’s greatest fear is losing their voice; she protects hers by avoiding alcohol and cigarettes.