MariangelaFrontIntroduction

Mariangela (full name MariangeIa Celeste Papaconstantinu) is a Greek singer/songwriter, born in Milan, Italy, from a Greek father and an Italian mother. At the age of 6 she moved to Germany, and in the early 1970s moved to Greece. There she was soon considered a child prodigy, after appearing on television performing her own compositions and playing the guitar.

Not long after she was offered a record contract with Polygram Greece. With the song ‘You Were Right’ she was chosen to represent Greece at the World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo, Japan in 1973. The song appeared on a single the next year, backed with ‘Sinefia’, and it is the last song that she performed at the Greek song festival of Thessaloniki in 1974, with plenty of good reviews.

In the fall of 1975 Mariangela, still a teenager, traveled to London to record her first album, to be produced by Vangelis, who had just moved from Paris to London and was still in the process of constructing his own Nemo Studios. Therefor recording sessions took place at Orange Studios near Piccadilly Circus, where Vangelis was already booked to produce the latest album of the Greek rock band Socrates, titled “Phos”. The sessions took about 6 weeks, and while Vangelis did not compose any of the songs on Mariangela’s album, he is fully credited for arranging and producing, and can clearly be heard playing keyboards as well.

As Mariangela was present during the recording sessions of the Socrates’ album, she can be heard singing background vocals on their album (uncredited). At the same time all members of Socrates played their instruments when it was time to record Mariangela’s songs (also uncredited). Vangelis' favorite songs turned out to be Mariangela's compositions ‘Memories Of Friends’ and ‘Alone With The Day’.

Apart from a scarce 7” single release ‘Honalulu Baby’ b/w ‘Shoo Be Doo’, Mariangela’s album was hardly promoted by the record company and it did not sell well, making it a rare find nowadays. Soon after Polygram lost interest to release more of Mariangela's songs. In 1976 again she performed her own song ‘Think I'm Losing My Men’ in Tokyo at the World Popular Song Festival, unfortunately never released.

Today Mariangela lives in Greece with her family, where she has released other albums such as "Zahari" (Lyra 4690) on LP in 1993, and "I Shall Return" (private issue) on CD in 2006. She continues to work as a singer and composer while occasionally also appearing live in Greece and abroad.

 

MariangelaLPTracklist and credits

  1. Honalulu Baby (Denny Beckermann)
  2. You Are The One (Mariangela)
  3. Let Me Find A Pathway (Stamatis Spanoudakis)
  4. Memories Of Friends (Mariangela)
  5. My Dear Life (Mariangela)
  6. What You're Doing To Me (G.A. Spiropoulos)
  7. Little Girl It's Time To Be A Woman (Denny Beckermann)
  8. Rainbow (Denny Beckermann)
  9. This Is My World (Denny Beckermann)
  10. Shoo Be Doo (Yannis Zographos / C. Hazel) 
  11. Alone With The Day (Mariangela)

 Arranged and produced by Vangelis Papathanassiou.

 

MariangelaSingleFrontDiscography

LP

7” single

Unfortunately the album was never released on CD, but in 2020 the album was re-issued on LP by COBALT music / Telephone Explosion. This however is a transfer from the original LP.

 

Recording studio

As his own studio was still being built, Vangelis booked recording time at Orange Studios, a small but centrally located studio near Piccadilly Circus. There he met Keith Spencer-Allen, sound engineer at Orange Studios at the time, who would be his sound engineer at Nemo Studios for the remaining part of the 1970s.

 

MariangelaInTheStudioMore

  • Read more about Mariangela's life and music in this interview.
  • Mariangela sings backing vocals on the song ‘A Day In Heaven’ on Socrates' album “Phos”. When she arrived at the studio in London, Vangelis was still recording with Socrates for their album and she happily sang the backing vocals.
  • After all songs had been recorded with Socrates, recording sessions continued with the songs for Mariangela's album. All members of Socrates play on several songs on Mariangela's album.
  • The male singer on ‘Little Girl It's Time To Be A Woman Now’ and ‘Rainbow’ is an unknown studio singer.
  • The photo used for the album sleeve is taken by the wife of the head of Polydor Greece after the completion of the album. Dressed up specially for the occasion Mariangela stands in the garden of their summer house in Anavysos, near Sounio.

 

Links

VangelisAndMariangela