By Renee Pappas
My longstanding interest in contemporary Greek art and culture didn’t really begin until I was in my early 20’s. Until then, what I knew about the culture—and this was typical of Greek Americans growing up in the ’50s and ‘60s—revolved around my family.
I went to Sunday school. I even went to Greek school for two years, where a gentleman in a rumpled suit attempted to teach us our alpha beta gammas. Greek music from shellac 78’s played in our garden during name day celebrations for my father, Panayiotis.
After my father died, that music disappeared, and we moved away from our extended family in Chicago. My connection to Greek culture was now limited to attending church and the food my mother cooked.
A few years later, I was working in the music business—at Geffen Roberts Management and Asylum Records, companies that managed and recorded the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, the various members of CSNY, and Joni Mitchell—when the unexpected happened.
It was Judee Sill, the first artist signed to Asylum, who opened my eyes to contemporary Greek culture. Like the other artists, Judee would come by the office and “hang out.” Judee wasn’t Greek, but when she discovered I was, she asked if I had read Nikos Kazantzakis. I hadn’t.
The next time I saw her, she brought me a copy of The Last Temptation of Christ. I was hooked. I bought his other books. Judee was obviously inspired by Kazantzakis—one song on her first album was “Jesus was a Cross Maker,” which was produced by Graham Nash.
Judee, a brilliant singer-songwriter, died of an overdose in 1979. She was 35. A documentary on her short, creative life, Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill has just been released, and I hope her music will be appreciated by a new audience.
I must thank Judee for setting me on a journey that has culminated in my involvement with gr2me