Nikos Vrachnas ( el, Νίκος Βραχνάς) was a

rembetiko Rebetiko ( el, ρεμπέτικο, ), plural rebetika ( ), occasionally transliterated as rembetiko or rebetico, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek music which have come to be grouped together since the s ...

bouzouki The bouzouki (, also ; el, μπουζούκι ; alt. pl. ''bouzoukia'', from Greek ), also spelled buzuki or buzuci, is a musical instrument popular in Greece. It is a member of the long-necked lute family, with a round body with a flat top and ...

player who in his playing evoked the

Piraeus Piraeus ( ; el, Πειραιάς ; grc, Πειραιεύς ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens' city centre, along the east coast of the Saronic ...

rembetiko style of the 1930s.

Biography

Nikos Vrachnas was born into a poor family in

Nikaia Nicaea, also known as Nicea or Nikaia (; ; grc-gre, Νίκαια, ) was an ancient Greek city in Bithynia, where located in northwestern Anatolia and is primarily known as the site of the First and Second Councils of Nicaea (the first and seve ...

(Kokkinia),

. There is some uncertainty about his year of birth, which has been given variously as circa 1936, or 1941. He died in Piraeus in 2004. As a young man he worked in

foundries A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

, while later on he was better known as a second hand dealer and

scrap metal Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has monetary value, especially recovered me ...

collector. Never seeking

publicity In marketing, publicity is the public visibility or awareness for any product, service, person or organization (company, charity, etc.). It may also refer to the movement of information from its source to the general public, often (but not always) ...

, he did not achieve popularity on a larger scale, though his musicianship was known and much appreciated within a small group of

rebetes A rebetis (Greek: ρεμπέτης ; pl. rebetes ρεμπέτες {{IPA, e(m)ˈbetes}) is a musician involved in the scene of the Greek musical genre of rebetiko, which flourished between 1920 and 1955. Prominent ''rebetes'' include: *Rita Abatzi ...

and fans during his lifetime.

Musical background and style

Vrachnas began playing as a child in 1952. He became familiar as a youth with many of the legendary figures of rembetiko who at that time had been forgotten, such as

Markos Vamvakaris Márkos Vamvakáris ( el, Μάρκος Βαμβακάρης; 10 May 1905 – 8 February 1972), was a ''rebetiko'' musician. He is universally referred to by ''rebetiko'' writers and fans simply by his first name, Márkos. The great significance ...

Yiorgos Batis Yiorgos Batis ( el, Γιώργος Μπάτης, also Giorgos Batis) (1885 – 10 March 1967) was one of the first rebetes influential to ''rebetiko'' music. His real name was Yiorgos Tsoros although he was known as Yiorgos Ampatis. He had a g ...

, Stelios Keromitis, Nikos Tsokaropoulos and many others who played in the area. His style is a synthesis of the early styles of Markos Vamvakaris and Stelios Keromitis (with whom he learned) and the Piraeus school of the 1930s; traces of older styles also characterize his simple melodic taximia (

improvisation Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

s) and powerfully played zeibekika, always executed with the use of open strings and his rough and passionate

baritone A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the r ...

voice.

Recordings

Few live recordings of his playing survive to capture his original style, which survived basically unchanged until the 21st century. However, the rembetiko producer Charles Howard recorded sessions with Vrachnas in about 1980, and in 2000, of which three songs have been issued on CD: Vrachnas' own composition "Κάτω απ’ τη Σκάλα του Παπά" ('Down by the Priest's Jetty') (2000), "Ηθέλα να' μουν Ηρακλής" ('I wanted to be

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Gr ...

') by Markos Vamvakaris, and "Ραντεβόυ σαν περιμένω" ('Waiting for you on our date') by Ioannis Papaioannou. The rest of these recordings remain unissued. A number of privately recorded

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

s also survive.

References

2004 deaths Greek male songwriters 20th-century Greek male singers Greek rebetiko singers Greek bouzouki players Year of birth missing Musicians from Piraeus {{Greece-singer-stub