Aliakbar Askarian Zaka, better known by his stage name Ebi Littles, passed away on Wednesday, September 10, in Los Angeles at the age of 73. News of his death was met with widespread reactions from music lovers and fellow artists across social media.
Born in Tehran in 1952, Ebi Littles began his artistic journey in the mid-1960s. In 1967, together with a group of friends, he founded the band Littles, which initially focused on performing covers of internationally renowned groups such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and the Bee Gees. Before long, his collaboration with emerging Iranian composers like Siavash Ghomayshi led to the creation of lasting songs such as Gharibeh (The Stranger), Mahtab (Moonlight), and Ghalbe Shekasteh (Broken Heart). Among them, Gharibeh—with lyrics by Masoud Ghasemi and music by Ghomayshi—became a hallmark of his career and was later reinterpreted by several singers.
Another memorable piece was Paper Boat (Ghayegh-e Kaghazi), with lyrics by Afshin Azimi and music by Davoud Afshari, later covered by Mansour. Ebi Littles gained special recognition for his Persian renditions of Demis Roussos’ songs, earning him the nickname “the Demis Roussos of Iran.” He once recalled that a joint concert with Roussos had been planned in Greece but was canceled due to the political upheavals of the Iranian Revolution.
In the early 1970s, Littles briefly stepped away from music. When Ebrahim Hamedi (known simply as Ebi) rose to fame, Askarian adopted the suffix “Littles” to distinguish his stage identity.
Connected by family ties to Manouchehr Vosough, a popular cinema actor, and Roshank, a renowned radio announcer, Ebi Littles emigrated with his family to Austria in 1988, before moving permanently to the United States in 1999, where he lived in Los Angeles.
With his passing, Iranian music loses one of its nostalgic voices of the 1960s and 1970s—an artist whose songs and interpretations continue to echo in the memories of a generation.
