Nikos Vrachnas (Greek:Νίκος Βραχνάς) was arembetikobouzouki player who in his playing evoked thePiraeus rembetiko style of the 1930s.

Nikos Vrachnas was born into a poor family inNikaia (Kokkinia),Piraeus. There is some uncertainty about his year of birth, which has been given variously as circa 1936, or 1941.^[1] He died in Piraeus in 2004. As a young man he worked infoundries, while later on he was better known as a second hand dealer andscrap metal collector. Never seekingpublicity, he did not achieve popularity on a larger scale, though his musicianship was known and much appreciated within a small group ofrebetes and fans during his lifetime.

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 asMarkos Vamvakaris,Yiorgos Batis, 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)^[2] and the Piraeus school of the 1930s; traces of older styles also characterize his simple melodic taximia (improvisations) and powerfully playedzeibekika, always executed with the use of open strings and his rough and passionatebaritone voice.

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 onCD: Vrachnas' own composition "Κάτω απ’ τη Σκάλα του Παπά" ('Down by the Priest's Jetty') (2000),^[3] "Ηθέλα να' μουν Ηρακλής" ('I wanted to beHercules') by Markos Vamvakaris,^[4] and "Ραντεβόυ σαν περιμένω" ('Waiting for you on our date') byIoannis Papaioannou.^[5] The rest of these recordings remain unissued. A number of privately recordedvideos also survive.^[6]

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