Chris Demetriou | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Christos Demetriou |
| Also known as | Chris Dee |
| Genres |
|
| Instrument(s) | Keyboards, piano, guitar |
| Years active | 1966–present |
Chris Demetriou born in Paphos, Cyprus, is a British songwriter, musician, and record producer. A cover of a song he co-wrote with John Kongos, "He's Gonna Step On You Again" (which later became "Step On" by the alternative dance band Happy Mondays), appears in Q magazine's top hundred singles of all time.
Demetriou began his professional music career in his teens, playing keyboards for the Johannesburg R&B group, John E Sharpe & the Squires. He appeared on the group's most successful singles, including covers of The Kinks' "Stop Your Sobbing" and Paul Simon's "I Am A Rock", as well as their Maybelline album.[1]
Demetriou left South Africa for London with fellow musician John Kongos and the pair formed the psychedelic rock group, Floribunda Rose.[citation needed] However, the band soon changed its name to Scrugg and recorded a number of singles on the Pye label, with producer John Schroder and new drummer, Henry Spinetti.[citation needed] Scrugg enjoyed limited success, with their double A-side "One Way Street" and "Linda Loves Linda" receiving significant airplay but failing to perform well in the charts.[1] The songwriting partnership of Kongos/Demetriou proved to be more successful than the groups they were in – with two songs reaching the top five in the UK Singles Chart and another, sung by Bond girl Daliah Lavi, reaching number one in Germany and Switzerland.[citation needed] Some of their early work, including recordings by Floribunda Rose and Scrugg, were released on the compilation Lavender Popcorn in 2001. They also wrote the music for the British cult film A Promise of Bed directed by Derek Ford and starring John Bird, Victor Spinetti and Dennis Waterman.[citation needed]
Demetriou's most notable songwriting credit is for "He's Gonna Step on You Again", along with Kongos. The original version was released by Kongos and made it into the UK Singles Chart for 14 weeks – reaching No. 4 in May 1971. The song was notably covered by the Happy Mondays (retitled as "Step On") and this version was listed at number 77 in "The Top 100 Greatest Singles of All Time", published in the February 1999 edition of Q magazine. Demetriou again collaborated with Kongos on his follow-up single, "Great White Lady" but it did not enter the top twenty of the UK chart.
In 1970, Demetriou started to work with Tony Defries at Gem Productions and then with MainMan on David Bowie's material.[citation needed]
Demetriou changed direction in 1972 and became a full-time record producer. One of his first recordings was a single with the group Milkwood. After quitting the New Seekers, Laurie Heath, Chris Barrington and Sally Graham formed Milkwood and they released three singles for Warner Bros., two of which Demetriou produced.[citation needed]Barry Krost signed the young record producer to BKN Management and Demetriou started working with Mike d'Abo, formerly of Manfred Mann, producing Down at Rachael's Place and Little MissUnderstood. As a result of being signed to the same management company, Demetriou collaborated with Cat Stevens in the recording of the album Buddha and the Chocolate Box. During these early years, Demetriou produced ten albums and over a dozen singles, including five albums for A&M Records (see Discography).
By the mid-1970s, Demetriou had become an A&R manager / record producer for Decca Records, during which time he signed and recorded Robert Campbell, whose album Living in the Shadow was put forward by Decca for a Grammy Award nomination.[citation needed] Between the years 1984 and 1988, ACTS International (his South African record label, distributed by MFP), released three top five singles and one top twenty album — all of which were produced by Demetriou.[citation needed] In 2015, Demetriou ventured back into the music business and started a new record label, Red Letter Music.[citation needed]
