Welcome and thank you for joining and supporting Aegean Blues Appreciation Society. We look forward to you being a part of our community
€50.00
Club Membership with ABAS
The ABAS is a totally volunteer run not-for-profit organisation. It relies on annual Membership as its main source of income to facilitate ABAS Blues Academy initiatives which serve the Blues community and promote Greek live Blues music and musicians.
ABAS Members receive free ABAS Academy resources, subsidies by reduced prices from our sponsors, support at ABAS jams and workshop and 15% discount of ABAS merchandise. New ABAS memberships also receive an ABAS T-shirt worth 25 euros.
In addition, financial Membership funds the means by which the ABAS can promote and grow a healthy regional live Blues music scene in the Aegean, the Dodecanese and Greece. In 2025, the ABAS founder and Vice President modelled this initiative based from her experiences and acheivements as a member of the Melbourne Blues Appreciation Society in her birth town, from “The most successful Blues Society in the world” modelling successes and ongoing progressive initiatives such as:
- Monthly "YOUTH IN BLUES ACADEMY": nurturing young talent with mentorship and guiding the new generation of Blues musicians.
- Annual "ABAS BLUES CHALLENGE": sending selected Blues artists to represent and compete in the annual European Blues Union Challenge and The International Blues Challenge (IBC) in Memphis, USA.
- Annual "BLUES AWARDS": recognising and awarding the talent of Greek Blues recording artists (The first awards in 2026).
- Monthly "ACADEMY BLUES WORKSHOP JAM SESIONS": with free online resources by qualified music teachers and blues graduates to facilitate a live performance platform for all Blues musicians for both established and amateur musicians.
HONORARY MEMBER ELIAS ZAIKOS
Elias Zaikos
Blues Wire
Elias Zaikos was born in 1960 in Thessaloniki, Greece, where he is permanently based. During his early teen years, he showed relatively little interest in music and listened mainly to Greek traditional and popular songs. Sometime around 1976, he was introduced to soul and to rock and roll music. Little by little he got so involved with music that being a listener just wasn't enough. A friend of local rock musicians, he followed them on to their gigs and got a first hand knowledge of the pleasures - but also the difficulties - that are all part of a musician's lifestyle. He soon found out what it really means to express oneself through an instrument. As he turned twenty, he picked up the guitar for the first time. The six strings became his constant companion and he devoted his time to practicing and playing. Around the same time he discovered the blues, the musical genre that had such a powerful and profound effect on him that he dedicated himself to it completely. A self-taught musician, Elias Zaikos developed a particular technique on the guitar, using a thumbpick together with the bare fingers of his right hand - something he saw for the first time on a live Muddy Waters video. In the early eighties, Elias Zaikos founded Blues Wire (or Blues Gang, as they were initially named). In 1983 the band recorded the first blues album in Greece, which paved the way for a long series of successful albums that followed. Performing an average of two hundred nights every year in a small country like Greece is an achievement indeed, but Blues Wire have done just that, confirming thus the band's hard work and also its enduring popularity. All these years, Blues Wire have been constantly active in countless jam sessions, backing and supporting famed bluespeople, like Katie Webster, John Hammond, Albert King, Otis Rush, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Larry Garner, Carey Bell and many others: They were all amazed by the authority and style of these Greek blues players. Europe was the obvious next step for E.Z. and Blues Wire.
Members & Affiliates
- Greek
- Blues Wire
- Blues Cargo
- Blues Diffussion
- Ioanis Mono
- Dimitris Bako
- Tassos Skouras
- Sakis Dovolis
- Jennie Kapadai
- Alex Karavasilis
- Zoi Zioga
- International
- Dylan Kent
- Goran Pivniki
- Jay Johnson
- Maria Tsolaks
- Jewel Timo