ATHENS, Greece — Popular Greek singer-songwriter Dionysos Savvopoulos was buried on Saturday at Athens' First Cemetery in a state-sponsored funeral, four days after his death at the age of 80.
Savvopoulos died of a heart attack after battling cancer since 2020.
Thousands of people came to pay their respects to the beloved if sometimes controversial artist as he lay in state in the chapel of Athens Cathedral on Saturday morning. Hundreds of people walked nearly 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) behind the hearse to the cemetery.
The presence of the Greek Navy band playing mournful music signaled a change in Savvopoulos's status: from a man celebrated by the anarchist left in the 1960s and 1970s and rejected by the establishment as a long-haired freak, to a figure accepted by that same establishment and the cultural mainstream.
Savvopoulos never changed his musical style – a mixture of rock, folk rock, jazz and Greek popular music – to suit popular tastes. Always a political beast, he did not shy away from criticizing the left and its illusions, especially in his 1989 album The Haircut, the cover of which depicted him beardless and with long locks of hair. Some of his songs have earned him the enmity of some of his longtime fans. The beard grew, but his politics remained moderate.
Conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the first of many to eulogize Savvopoulos during the funeral service, used lyrics from the 1972 song “Messenger Angel” to portray the artist as speaking uncomfortable truths that many did not want to hear. “If he doesn’t have good news, then don’t tell us anything,” he quoted the song’s ending.
Others who joined in praising Savvopoulos included former President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, fellow musicians, artists and literary figures, some from his hometown of Thessaloniki, as well as one of his two grandchildren.
