Markos Vamvakaris

Born in 1905 on the Aegean island of Syros, Markos Vamvakaris left school when he was eight years old and stowed away from home around age 15, landing in the tough port city of Piraeus. Within a few months of arriving there, he had taught himself to play the stringed bouzouki—a skill which he deftly realized would offer him an escape grim jobs working in a slaughterhouse and loading coal on the harbor docks. Soon, he was playing at tekdedhes (hash dens) with an astonishing quartet that included a fellow composer and bouzouki player nicknamed Artemis (Anestis Delias), vocalist Stratos Payioumtzis and a baglamas (a tiny bouzouki) player called Batis (real name Yiorgos Tsoros).

With his rough-textured and rather strident voice, Vamvakaris didn't consider himself much of a singer. But when the Odeon record label began recording him in 1933, he recorded the vocals for two 78-rpm sides, a zeimbekiko dance tune called "O Dervises" and a hassapiko named "O Harmanes." Vamvakaris quickly ascended into the pantheon of classic rembetika stars.

Vamvakaris' music chronicled lives of poverty, hardship and the struggle just to survive with lyrical references to jail terms, drugs and misery in love affairs. As the decades passed, however, Vamvakaris softened and cleaned up his lyrics for a wider audience, and he continued recording well into the 1950s. He passed away in 1972.

Among the excellent reissues available are a complete Rounder title dedicated to Vamvakaris, called Markos Vamvakaris: Bouzouki Pioneer, 1932–1940. Several Vamvakaris performances are also available on My Only Consolation: Classic Pireotic Rembetica 1932–1946 (Rounder) and the two-CD set Oi Teleftaioi Rembetes (The Last Rembetes) on the Greek label Lyra, though non-Greek speakers should note that there are no English-language notes on the Lyra album. —Anastasia Tsioulcas