Alec R. Costandinos

Biography

Alec Rupen Costandinos (born Alexandre Garbis Sarkis Kouyoumdjian, 20 March 1944) is a French composer, music producer, songwriter and singer, known for his contributions to disco music. He dominated the disco and Euro-disco genres in the late 1970s.

Biography

Costandinos was born on 20 March 1944, in Cairo, Egypt. His father was Armenian and his mother was Greek.
He began his career as a publisher and producer for various artists, including French pop star Claude Francois and chanteuse Dalida. After writing Cerrone's "Love in C Minor" (1976), Costandinos was signed to Barclay Records. He released his first album, a self-titled effort under the name Love & Kisses in 1977, which featured the tracks "I Found Love (Now That I Found You)" and "Accidental Lover", which together reached #1 on Billboard's disco chart. Costandinos went on to release a number of wildly successful records under the prominent American disco label, Casablanca. His album, Romeo & Juliet has been credited for bringing the concept album to dance music. Its title track also went to #1 on the Billboard disco chart for one week in 1978. He also wrote "Thank God It's Friday", once again recorded by Love & Kisses, the theme track to the disco film of the same name.
Costandinos was involved as a writer in the development of many productions of Demis Roussos. He also contributed to the debut album of Crystal Grass, which featured the club hit "Crystal World", released on the Philips label in France. He has also written under the pseudonym R. Rupen. He often worked with a collective of backing singers, the Birds of Paris, some of whom later became famous in their own right. According to what he declared in one of his rare interviews on 11 December 2011 at Open House Radio (Miami), his disco works were basically influenced by Philly sound, classical and melodic Italian music.