Nikos Vrachnas was born into a poor family in Nikaia (Kokkinia), Piraeus.
As a young man he worked in foundries, while later on he was better known as a second hand dealer and scrap metal collector.
Never seeking publicity, he did not achieve popularity on a larger scale, though his musicianship was known and much appreciated within a small group of rebetes and fans during his lifetime.
He became familiar as a youth with many of the legendary figures of rembetiko who at that time had been forgotten, such as Markos Vamvakaris, Yiorgos Batis, Stelios Keromitis, Nikos Tsokaropoulos and many others who played in the area.
However, the rembetiko producer Charles Howard recorded sessions with Vrachnas in about 1980, and in 2000, of which three songs have been issued on CD: Vrachnas' own composition "Κάτω απ’ τη Σκάλα του Παπά" ('Down by the Priest's Jetty') (2000),[3] "Ηθέλα να' μουν Ηρακλής" ('I wanted to be Hercules') by Markos Vamvakaris,[4] and "Ραντεβόυ σαν περιμένω" ('Waiting for you on our date') by Ioannis Papaioannou.