''Earth'' is the first official solo album by the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
artist
Vangelis
Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou ( el, Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου ; 29 March 1943 – 17 May 2022), known professionally as Vangelis ( ; el, Βαγγέλης, links=no ), was a Greek composer and arranger of ...
, released in 1973. In contrast to ''
Heaven and Hell'' (1975) and some soundtracks by Vangelis from this period, ''Earth'' was not released on
compact disc
The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...
in the 1980s — it was not until 1996 that a CD version was made available, and then only in Greece.
The album was promoted by a concert, held in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, at the
Olympia Theatre in February 1974.
In 1974 two left-over tracks from the recording sessions for ''Earth'' were issued as a single, on the
WWA label: "Who", written by Fitoussi and Dassin on the A-side and featuring vocals by the former, and the instrumental "Sad Face", by Vangelis himself, on the B-side.
Instruments
Vangelis plays keyboards (
Hammond L100 organ, Elka Tornado reed organ, Selmer
Clavioline
The clavioline is an electronic keyboard instrument, a forerunner to the analog synthesizer. It was invented by French engineer Constant Martin in 1947 in Versailles.
The instrument consists of a keyboard and a separate amplifier and speaker ...
), percussion, various ethnic instruments (flute, tabla) and provides background vocals. Most of the synthetic organic sounds on the album came from his Hammond L100 Organ put through a
Binson
The Binson Echorec is an echo machine produced by Italian (Milan) company Binson founded by Dr. Bonfiglio Bini, an early manufacturer of such devices. Unlike most other analog echo machines, they used an analog magnetic drum recorder instead of ...
Echorec and some other effects. Collaborating artists are Vangelis' former
Aphrodite's Child
Aphrodite's Child was a Greek rock and pop band formed in 1967, by Vangelis Papathanassiou (keyboards, flutes), Demis Roussos (bass, acoustic and electric guitar, vocals), Loukas Sideras (drums and vocals), and Silver Koulouris (guitar). They i ...
bandmate
Anargyros Koulouris (guitars, background vocals, and lute) and
Robert Fitoussi (bass guitar and lead vocals on tracks 1, 4, 6, and 8). The latter became better known in the 1980s as "
F. R. David
Elli Robert Fitoussi (born 1 January 1947), better known as F. R. David, is a French musician. He is best known for his 1982 hit single "Words (F. R. David song), Words".
Career
F. R. David was born Elli Robert Fitoussi in Menzel Bourguiba, th ...
" when he recorded the hit single "
Words (Don't Come Easy)".
Warren Shapovitch provided the narration on the tracks "We Were All Uprooted" and "A Song".
Track listing
References
External links
Lyrics
{{Authority control
1973 albums
Vangelis albums
Vertigo Records albums