Saturday, August 31, 2013

John Raptis: A Great Greek Guitarist.Re-Published 31.12. 2018




John Raptis: A Great Greek Guitarist.







John Raptis , A Great Greek Guitarist.

I have been extremely fortunate in my life, in meeting and sometimes working with some truly excellent musicians.
 One  of these was Bob Wood, the Scottish Folk singer I mentioned in my previous post.  I never  played music with him, but I used to give him tapes of my songs  which he said he liked. Maybe he was just being polite ! I gave a review of his songs here: http://mikeselleylyicsplus.blogspot.gr/2012/05/traditional-scottish-folk-singer-bob.htm I wrote to him as few months ago telling him about my review, but , hey, he didn't respond. Never mind, I see he names Eric Clapton as one of his friends, so I guess he is in another sort of universe to me. Bob, I wish you all the best.

I didn't realize then just how big a name he was in the Folk world. I saw him live at folk concerts and he was excellent.
 John Raptis has a very different style; it's a fusion of Jazz, Blues, Funky Rock and a whole lot of Soul , also performed brilliantly. Mind you, I'm sure if he played Folk it would be top-notch. He is, as I found out when I was lucky enough to work with him, very versatile.

I met him quite a few years ago through someone else. We got on very well together, and before long I was recording some of my songs with him and a few other  musicians  in his Underground studio in Athens.

It was fun and it was great to work with John .  His guitar playing and  general musical skills, not to mention his know-how about recording, always knocked me out.

He was also, unlike some I have met, very humble about his multiple musical abilities.

I'm delighted to see that he is gaining popularity among those people who like to hear music played at its best.  If you like to hear such music, and like the sound of a Jazzy, Funky, Progressive Rock style, with a twist of soul, I am sure you will like his music. He performs at the major clubs in Athens, but before you catch him live, you can hear , for free, some of his music here;http://www.soulincident.com/john_raptis.php.

Also check out :http://greekguitarworld.blogspot.gr/2011/09/john-raptis-3for1.html

If you have trouble with the link, try putting John Raptis, Greek guitarist in the Google search engine.

Mike Selley.

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