Beating the Blues with Nick and The Backbone

As one of the top Blues bands in Greece over the past 20 years, Nick and The Backbone has a long history and decades of collaborations with international Blues artists. Boasting a large discography and countless shows in Europe, they’re an electrifying Blues power band and one of the best of their kind in Europe. They are now bringing their magic to the island with two shows this coming weekend, in Nicosia and Limassol.

“Blues was guitar-based music back in its birth years,” frontman Nick Dounoussis says “so it really developed on that instrument. It expanded to rock n roll and rock music in modern times, but the instrument remained basically the same.”

Nick’s contribution to the Greek alternative music scene has helped to draw new audiences to Blues music and significantly reformed the culture of live music in his home country. ”Greece is a small state and as a small state, its Blues scene is small as well. Still, through our work with Blues Wire and The Backbone since the 1980s, we managed to establish a small but faithful audience. Today we count maybe 50+ bands dealing with the Blues, with some remarkable artists. I am certainly proud and glad I’ve been part of this all along. The rest is yet to come.”

Nick’s original compositions are fused into the band’s repertoire along with songs from legends including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Freddie King, Muddy Waters, Albert King, BB King, Fabulous Thunderbirds, Albert Collins, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Hendrix, all of which are great sources of inspiration for Nick.

If there’s something Nick wants Cypriot audiences to understand it is the art of live music. “Music is on a downfall lately. The strength of the artistry in a musician cannot be compared to any plastic beat, rhythm or artificial melody. If anyone wants to dig into music’s majesty, then listening to real music and real players is a one-way road.”

 

Nick and The Backbone

Live performance by legendary Greek blues-rock band. December 7. DownTown Live, Nicosia. December 8. Ravens Music Hall, Limassol. Tel: 99-498642

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.