Edito de Adhika me katakrinoun [1940] (They blame me unjustly)Markos Vamvakaris (1905-1972) lyricist, composer, singer He was born in Ano Hora on the island of Syros in 1905. His father played the greek bagpipes and Markos would accompany him on the dog-skinned drum. When Markos was eight years old he left school to work with his mother in a cotton thread factory, which he promptly ditched and started picking up odd jobs like newspaper boy, butchers assistant, eventually getting mixed up with the underworld of the streets. Barba-Markos, as he was known, was a Syros Catholic, or Frankosyrianos. At the age of 12, believing he was wanted by the police, Vamvakaris left Syros and went to Piraeus. He had to work for a living from a very young age and he spent several years as a shoe-shine boy, paper-boy, grocery store clerk and abattoir skinner. In 1925, Markos heard Old Nikos play bouzouki and was immediately hooked. Six months later he was playing at a teke when Old Nikos stopped by, he couldn't believe it was the same kid who'd never even played a few months earlier. Nikos said they'd show Markos something i the morning and he'd come back and play it better than them in the evening. He began playing the bouzouki somewhere around 1925, becoming an innovative virtuoso player, and began to compose music, and write songs. He penned his first songs just before 1930. At first he often played in hashish smoking establishments known as Tekes, later he and his band, which included Giorgos Batis, Anestis Delias and Stratos Pagioumtzis played in more legitimate clubs. They formed the first popular (laiko) group with bouzoukis only, and they played at the Sarantopoulos nightclub in the neighbourhood of Anastasi in Piraeus. Vamvakaris was the first to record a popular song in Greece, with instrumental bouzouki music, Karadouzeni, in 1932 (Parlophon B-21654). Vamvakaris recorded his first rebetiko disc, Na 'Rchosouna Re Magka Mou ( ' ) in 1932. Among other songs in that period, he wrote the classic love songs "Frangkosyriani". After the liberation of Greece from the occupation of Nazi Germany, difficult times arrived, since his kind of music was no longer fashionable. He also suffered badly with arthritis in his hands. The slump in his fortunes lasted until the early 1960s, when after initiatives by Vassilis Tsitsanis, many of his old songs were revived, sung by modern singers including Grigoris Bithikotsis, and Stratos Dionysiou. Markos composed 164 songs and sang in 166 songs, 42 of which were by other composers. Vamvakaris died on February 8, 1972 at the age of 66.