Love and Kisses
    Love & Kisses was the brainchild of Alec Costandinos.  Costandinos was born Alexandre Kouyoumdjiam in Cairo, Egypt, in 1944 to an Armenian father and a Greek mother. Growing up in a household where music was prevailant, his two older brothers studied music at a conservatory, it was ingrained in a young Alec. By the young age of 15 he had already formed his first group and by 18 he had left Egypt for Australia. In Australia under the guise of attending college as a political major he formed his second group, The Bell Boys. After completeing school and earning his degree he moved to Paris in 1966 at the age of 22.
     While in school Alec discovered a knack for song-writing, upon arrival in Paris he found his way into the local music scene via his writing skills. His first break came with writing a minor hit for French pop star Dalida in 1970. This led to studio session work and a chance meeting with fellow Egyptian Demis Russos. His writing and studio work led him to the doorstep of French producer Barclay. Barclay had been working with another young musician, Jean-Marc Cerrone  and felt the two should collaborate on an album that he was going to release on Jean-Marc. Alec co-authored "Love In 'C' Minor" and wrote "Midnight Lady" for Cerrone's debut album.
     With the success of "Love In 'C' Minor" and the emergence of the 'disco scene' Alec was offered a contract with Barclay's record label. He set up shop in London's Trident Studios and began working nonstop for the next three years.
    First came the 1977 self-titled debut by "Love And Kisses" on Barclay's label, later re-released on Casablanca Records in America. This debut confirmed Costandinos' gift for epic disco anthems, which often clocked over 15 minutes and spanned the entire side of an album. The album featured Alec's vocal prowess as well as those of Sue Glover, Stephanie DeSykes, Sunny Leslie, Vicki Brown and Joanne Stone, who became known as "The Birds Of Paris." The album also featured the talents of two future disco stars, keyboards by Alan Hawkshaw (Love De-Luxe With Hawkshaw's Discophonia) and arranging and conducting by Don Ray (Garden Of Love).
     The album was a summer smash with "Accidental Lover" and "I Found Love (Now That I Have Found You)."  The two track gem was pure high energy, swirling strings and lengthy instrumental passages  made it a dance floor favorite. "I Found Love" was later recorded by Jeanie Tracy in 1990 and became a hit all-over again.
    By 1978 Costandinos was writing the hit theme song to the Casablanca-affiliated disco film "Thank God It's Friday" and contributing another hit song, "You're The Most Precious Thing In My Life," to the film's soundtrack. Both under his Love And Kisses moniker.
     This would not be his only taste of composing and producing soundtrack music. The soundtrack, more successful than the movie, garnered him a Gold record and another international hit. It also produced Love and Kisses first and  second 12" singles, as a promotional items.
     1978 marked yet another prolific year and Love and Kisses  most commercially successful. Radio embraced the title song, but during the life span of Love and Kisses radio tended to shy away from their lengthy epic tracks.
    Simultaneously, the second Love & Kisses album was also released in 1978. "How Much, How Much I Love You" proved to be their biggest seller ever and the title cut was an instant number one dance floor classic.
     Most of side two is devoted to "Beauty And The Beast," Alec's cheesy 14-minute disco adaptation of the fairy tale. Costandinos was never one to shy away from camp. Side two ends on a surprising note with "Maybe," a decent, if unremarkable, pop ballad that is a major departure from the sort of hyper Eurodisco Love and Kisses was known for. Once again Alec and "The Birds Of Paris" did the vocal duties while Hawkshaw was back at the keyboards and Don Ray was off on his own career.
     Tthere were no 12" singles issued, perhaps due to the unusal album length of the cuts? Still the album, along with Alec's other releases, cemented his international disco icon status and garnered numerous global awards.
     Love and Kisses pleasantly surprised disco audiences by doing some of its best work on its third and final album "You Must Be Love." Perhaps the fact that commercial radio was receptive to the "Thank God It's Friday" single inspired producer/songwriter Costandinos to streamline Love and Kisses and make the group a bit more radio-friendly — none of the three songs on Side 1. last over eight minutes. Side 1, in fact, contains some of Love and Kisses' most memorable work, including the delightfully Euro-trashy "Ooh La La La La," the Latin-flavored "Your Middle Name Is Money" and the Gino Vannelli—ish adult contemporary ballad "Find Yourself A Dream." Side 2 is devoted entirely to the 16-minute title song, a shorter edited 12" single helped promote the album and propell it to a top ten dance floor hit. Raymond Knehnetsky helped with arrangements and conducting. Vocals were by Alec, "the birds," Arthur Simms, and Katie Kissoon.
    By 1979 disco was on it's death run and Costandinos was being pulled in a million directions with all of his off-shoot releases. Love and Kisses was put to bed at the end of the decade. Three brief releases and a well known name in disco history and it was over. Oddly enough a few Love and Kisses tracks have been re-released throughout the years on compact disc but a full scale re-issue of their works has yet to materialize.......sad. Our hats of to Costandinos and his band of merry music makers.
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