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Greek Music: a personal odyssey

© Stephen William Gray

Like many before me, and many since, I first discovered the music of Greece on a tourist bus, belting out the bouzouki hits over and over again as we travelled around the country. Others will have heard the very same tunes in every souvenir shop and taverna in the Plaka. You either love them or loathe them - but you cannot escape them.

That holiday I returned with my first Greek musical instrument - though "musical" may be stretching it a bit far. My £20 bouzouki is decorated with authentic 70's Greek wallpaper and has remained firmly in its soft brown plastic case for most of its life.

But "Never on a Sunday" and "Zorba's Dance" where just the beginning for me.

When I returned to Athens I got closer to the folk music via a well-established troupe and a wonderful museum.

The Dora Stratou Ethnic Dance Company have their own theatre on Filopappou hill and they have been entertaining tourists for many years. Despite this, their music, dances and costumes are vibrant - a must-see if you are in Athens. I saw them again two years ago, twenty-plus years after I had first seen them, and I was blown away again.

A second major folk-music attraction in Athens is the Museum of Greek Popular Musical Instruments - the Fivos Anoyanakis Collection. Around 1200 instruments dating from the 18th century to the present day are beautifully presented in an old Athenian mansion on Diogenous Street. Headphones are available at each cabinet so that you can listen to historic recordings as you read about and admire the instruments. They are grouped by type of instrument and include bagpipes, flutes, drums, bazoukis and lyra. It is a fascinating museum - one that you will want to return to.

My personal instrument collection continued to grow when I bought a second-hand mandolin from Johny's Music on Ifestou Street in Monastiraki. As well as the usual guitars and bouzoukis, Johny's has some more exotic instruments such as lyra, baglama and oud. My mandolin is round-backed and was made in nearby Piraeus in 1957. It was a school instrument - one of the kids has carved the name "Markos" on the front! I am not sure if this was in tribute to the rembetika star Markos Vamvakaris or whether it just happened to be the lad's own name.

Let me end part one of my Greek odyssey with a record recommendation: it is a self-titled cd (Lyra CD0072) by a band of architects from the North of the country who, according to "The Rough Guide" are a kind of Greek Pogues. They are certainly fine instrumentalists with great arrangements and apparently surreal lyrics, but Himerini Kolimvites to me are more of a Greek Negresses Vertes. Be that as it may, their drunken harmonies make a great sound. Give them a listen and you may well become a convert to the music of Greece.

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