1.
Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
2.
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
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The Republic comprised sixteen autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais, and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group, the capital of the Russian SFSR was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara. The Russian Soviet Republic was proclaimed on November 7,1917 as a sovereign state, the first Constitution was adopted in 1918. In 1922 the Russian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, the economy of Russia became heavily industrialized, accounting for about two-thirds of the electricity produced in the USSR. It was, by 1961, the third largest producer of petroleum due to new discoveries in the Volga-Urals region and Siberia, trailing only the United States and Saudi Arabia. In 1974, there were 475 institutes of education in the republic providing education in 47 languages to some 23,941,000 students. A network of territorially organized public-health services provided health care, the effects of market policies led to the failure of many enterprises and total instability by 1990. On June 12,1990, the Congress of Peoples Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty, on June 12,1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President. On December 8,1991, heads of Russia, Ukraine, the agreement declared dissolution of the USSR by its founder states and established the Commonwealth of Independent States. On December 12, the agreement was ratified by the Russian Parliament, therefore Russian SFSR denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russias independence from the USSR. On December 25,1991, following the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev as president of the Soviet Union, on December 26,1991, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Soviet of Nationalities, which by that time was the only functioning house of the Supreme Soviet. After dissolution of the USSR, Russia declared that it assumed the rights and obligations of the dissolved central Soviet government, the new Russian constitution, adopted on December 12,1993 after a constitutional crisis, abolished the Soviet system of government in its entirety. Initially, the state did not have a name and wasnt recognized by neighboring countries for five months. Meanwhile, anti-Bolsheviks coined the mocking label Sovdepia for the nascent state of the Soviets of Workers, on January 25,1918 the third meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets renamed the unrecognized state the Soviet Russian Republic. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3,1918, on July 10,1918, the Russian Constitution of 1918 renamed the country the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. By 1918, during the Russian Civil War, several states within the former Russian Empire seceded, internationally, in 1920, the RSFSR was recognized as an independent state only by Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania in the Treaty of Tartu and by the short-lived Irish Republic. On December 30,1922, with the creation of the Soviet Union, the final Soviet name for the republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, was adopted in the Soviet Constitution of 1936. By that time, Soviet Russia had gained roughly the same borders of the old Tsardom of Russia before the Great Northern War of 1700
3.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
4.
Order "For Merit to the Fatherland"
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The Order For Merit to the Fatherland is a state decoration of the Russian Federation. It was instituted on March 2,1994 by Presidential Decree 442, until the re-establishment of the Order of St. Andrew in 1998, it was the highest Order of the Russian Federation, though it is still the highest Civilian decoration of the state. The Order of St. Andrew decoration is given to Military personnel only, the statute of the Order was modified on January 6,1999 by Presidential Decree 19 and again on September 7,2010 by Presidential Decree 1099. The Order For Merit to the Fatherland is a mixed civilian, the highest of the four classes is the Order I class, the lowest being the Order IV class. These classes are awarded sequentially from the IV to the I class, in exceptional cases, the President of the Russian Federation may decide to award the Order For Service to the Fatherland to persons not previously awarded state awards of the Russian Federation. Soldiers receiving the Order For Merit to the Fatherland for distinction in combat will receive the Order with Swords, the order has a collar and four classes. The collar is the insignia of the President of the Russian Federation. The four classes of the Order are individually identified by the size, cross, Is a silver-gilt ruby-enamelled cross pattée bearing the gilt state emblem of the Russian Federation on its obverse. On the reverse of the cross is a circular medallion surrounded by the motto BENEFIT, HONOUR, in the center of the medallion, the year of the establishment of the Order 1994. On the reverse of the arm of the cross, laurel leaves. The cross for the Order I class measures 60mm across and is affixed to a 100mm wide red sash worn over the right shoulder. The cross of the II and III classes measures 50mm across and is worn on a 45mm wide red neck ribbon for the II class, the cross for the IV class measures 40mm across and hangs from a standard pentagonal mount covered by a red 24mm wide ribbon. Star, The star of the Order is eight pointed, 82mm across and of highly polished silver. At its center on the obverse if a circular medallion bearing the gilt state emblem of the Russian Federation. Around the medallion, a red enameled band with the motto of the Order BENEFIT, HONOUR, the reverse has the serial number of the Order engraved on the lower arm. A cavalier of an order is an individual who as received a grade of an order, a full cavalier of an order is an individual who has sequentially earned every class of that order. The individuals listed below are among those who have been so honoured, Awards and decorations of the Russian Federation The Commission on State Awards to the President of the Russian Federation
5.
Rock music in Russia
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Rock and roll became known in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and quickly broke free from its western roots. According to many critics, its golden age years were the 1980s. The great majority of the bands perform in the Russian language, prior to the late sixties, music in the Soviet Union was divided into two groups, music published by state record company Melodiya, and everything else. Under this second group were the bards, underground folk singer–songwriters and their music was often suppressed by the government, and yet enjoyed massive popularity, with Vysotsky becoming a highly popular cinema and theatre actor and an iconic figure of the times. The first rock bands in the Soviet Union appeared on the scene in the sixties in Moscow. The live bands grew popular in spite of governmental restrictions, guitar-driven bands evolved during this time, including Leningrad-based Pojuschie Gitary and Belarusian Pesnyary. These bands started the VIA movement, and were followed by others, such as Tcvety, Golubiye Gitary, at the same time Mashina Vremeni in Moscow and Aquarium in Leningrad started as nominally amateur bands and soon became popular, performing underground concerts. In the early 1970s Yuri Morozov invented a kind of Russian psychedelic rock, using elements of progressive rock and his sound influenced DDT, Aquarium, Chizh & Co, and many others, while he worked with them as a sound engineer. Another notable artist who started his activity at the time is Alexander Gradsky. There was no protest against the Soviet government in the lyrics he sang, so he was able to release records through Melodiya, in the 1980s an underground scene of rock artists emerged that based their style on a mix of Western rock music and the Russian bard tradition. Russian rock was also influenced by the Russian art group Mitki, in 1980 a big Rock festival was held in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, named Spring Rhythms. Almost all the performers and prize-winners at the festival were rock groups from the Russian SFSR and it was the first official rock festival in the Soviet Union. The lyrics of the Soviet rock bands often dealt with the darkest sides of the 80s Soviet life such as violence, alcoholism and crime. Soviet rock bands were consequently ignored by the radio and television. Some of the artists even had problems with KGB due to their public activities, at the same time, several rock clubs were established to allow amateur bands to perform legal concerts. Many of the 1980s bands are still active and popular among Russian youth, the term Russian rock is often used to refer to the particular sound of these bands. In the early- to mid-1980s, several clubs were founded in Moscow, Leningrad. These three cities had their own music scene, with friendly collaborations between artists commonplace
6.
Aquarium (group)
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Aquarium or Akvarium is a Russian rock group formed in Leningrad in 1972. The band had many changes over its 40-year history. Former band members have included Anatoly Gunitsky, Dyusha Romanov, Sergey Kuryokhin, Aquarium was formed in 1972 by two friends, Boris Grebenshikov, then a student of Applied Mathematics at Leningrad State University, and Anatoly Gunitsky, a playwright and absurdist poet. The founding members were Grebenshikov, George, Tsatsanidi Alexander, Alexander Vasilyev, the popular story behind the name Aquarium is that it was inspired by the Budapest street Leningrad pub The Aquarium and suggested by one of the band members. However, Grebenshikov has given differing stories in interviews, suggesting alternately that it came through word association sessions or was inspired a glass aquarium-like building. In late 1972, guitarist Edmund Shkliarsky was briefly a member of the band, bass player Michael Feinstein-Vasiliev, the first professional musician in the Aquarium, joined in January 1973. In the same year keyboardist Andrew Dyusha Romanov also joined the band, reports vary as to their first performance. In the 1970s and early 1980s, rock and roll was strictly regulated in the Soviet Union, aquariums usual concert venues were private apartments and they faced many years of fierce competition to land a spot on the label. These apartment concerts were a unique Soviet phenomenon created by underground musicians and this was similar to the concept of the Russian bards. In 1973, the Aquarium performed their first live concert, while on vacation in January – February 1973, Grebenshikov and George wrote material for their debut album The Temptation of St. Aquarium/Iskushenie Svyatogo Akvariuma. The band recorded the album with recording equipment, with variable sound quality results. The Temptation of St. Aquarium was long thought lost, but in 1997 the record was found, All masters of this record appear to have been lost. Their second album was called Parables of Count Diffusor and was written by Grebenshikov, George Fan and Dyusha Romanov, probably in the spring of 1974. They followed this up in 1976 with their album, S Toy Storony Zerkalnogo Stekla, or From the Other Side of a Mirror Glass. In 1974 the group became involved in amateur theatre, playing pieces of absurdity on the steps of the Engineers Castle. George left the band, but kept in touch with its members, the following year, cellist Vsevolod Gakkel joined the band. Aquarium began to perform live in 1976. Their first concert was on February 25,1976 jointly with Grebenshikov, Gakkel, on March 10 Aquarium was a surprise guest at the Tallinn Festival of Popular Music, where they played a set of four acoustic songs and won the prize for the most interesting and varied program
7.
Anatoly Gunitsky
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Anatoly Avgustovich Gunitsky also known as George and Old Rocker is a Russian writer, journalist and poet, one of the founders of Aquarium rock group. Since the foundation of Aquarium in 1972 he was the drummer of group, in 1975 he left the group and participated in absurd theatre actions. In that period he wrote Do samikh visot, Smert bezbiletnika, kryukoobraznost - moy deviz Rasskazy o Sashke
8.
Saint Petersburg State University
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Saint Petersburg State University is a Russian federal state-owned higher education institution based in Saint Petersburg. It is the oldest and one of the largest universities in Russia, the university has two primary campuses, one on Vasilievsky Island and the other in Peterhof. During the Soviet period, it was known as Leningrad State University and it was named after Andrei Zhdanov in 1948. Saint Petersburg State University is the second best multi-faculty university in Russia after Moscow State University, the university has a reputation for having educated the majority of Russias political elite, these include presidents Vladimir Putin and Dimitry Medvedev, both of whom studied Law at the university. The university is Russias oldest university, founded in 1724 by Peter the Great, Saint Petersburg state university is included in all ratings and lists of the best universities in the world and is one of the leaders in all indicators in Russia. The university was the first from Russian universities to join The Coimbra Group and it is disputed by the university administration whether Saint Petersburg State University or Moscow State University is the oldest higher education institution in Russia. The Petersburg Pedagogical Institute, renamed the Main Pedagogical Institute in 1814, was established in 1804, in 1823 most of the university moved from the Twelve Collegia to the southern part of the city beyond the Fontanka. In 1824 a modified version of the charter of Moscow University was adopted as the first charter of the Saint Petersburg Imperial University, in 1829 there were 19 full professors and 169 full-time and part-time students at the university. In 1830 Tsar Nicholas returned the building of the Twelve Collegia back to the university. In 1835 a new Charter of the Imperial Universities of Russia was approved, however, Pyotr Pletnyov was reappointed Rector and ultimately became the longest-serving rector of Saint Petersburg University. In 1855 Oriental studies were separated from the Faculty of History and Philology, in 1859–1861 female part-time students could attend lectures in the university. In 1861 there were 1,270 full-time and 167 part-time students in the university, of them 498 were in the Faculty of Law, many Russian, Georgian etc. managers, engineers and scientists studied at the Faculty of law therefore. During 1861–1862 there was student unrest in the university, and it was closed twice during the year. The students were denied freedom of assembly and placed under police surveillance, after the unrest, in 1865, only 524 students remained. A decree of the Emperor Alexander II of Russia adopted on 18 February 1863 restored the right of the university assembly to elect the rector and it also formed the new faculty of the theory and history of art as part of the faculty of history and philology. In March 1869, student unrest shook the university again but on a smaller scale, by 1869,2,588 students had graduated from the university. In 1880 the Ministry of National Enlightenment forbade students to marry, in 1882 another student unrest took place in the university. In 1884 a new Charter of the Imperial Russian Universities was adopted, on March 1,1887 a group of the university students was arrested while planning an attempt on the life of Alexander III of Russia
9.
The Beatles
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The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, the Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period from 1960, with Stuart Sutcliffe initially serving as bass player. The core of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison went through a succession of drummers, including Pete Best, before asking Starr to join them. They acquired the nickname the Fab Four as Beatlemania grew in Britain the next year, from 1965 onwards, the Beatles produced increasingly innovative recordings, including the albums Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road, after their break-up in 1970, they each enjoyed successful musical careers of varying lengths. McCartney and Starr, the members, remain musically active. Lennon was shot and killed in December 1980, and Harrison died of cancer in November 2001. The Beatles are the band in history, with estimated sales of over 600 million records worldwide. They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act, according to the RIAA, the Beatles are also the best-selling music artists in the United States, with 178 million certified units. In 2008, the group topped Billboard magazines list of the all-time most successful Hot 100 artists, as of 2016 and they have received ten Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and they were also collectively included in Time magazines compilation of the twentieth centurys 100 most influential people. In March 1957, John Lennon, then aged sixteen, formed a group with several friends from Quarry Bank school. They briefly called themselves the Blackjacks, before changing their name to the Quarrymen after discovering that a local group was already using the other name. Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after he, in February 1958, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison to watch the band. The fourteen-year-old auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing, after a month of Harrisons persistence, they enlisted him as their lead guitarist. By January 1959, Lennons Quarry Bank friends had left the group, the three guitarists, billing themselves at least three times as Johnny and the Moondogs, were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer. They used the name until May, when they became the Silver Beetles, before undertaking a tour of Scotland as the backing group for pop singer. By early July, they had changed their name to the Silver Beatles, allan Williams, the Beatles unofficial manager, arranged a residency for them in Hamburg, but lacking a full-time drummer they auditioned and hired Pete Best in mid-August 1960
10.
Bob Dylan
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Bob Dylan is an American songwriter, singer, painter, and writer. He has been influential in music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when his songs chronicled social unrest, early songs such as Blowin in the Wind and The Times They Are a-Changin became anthems for the Civil Rights Movement and anti-war movement. Leaving behind his initial base in the American folk music revival, his six-minute single Like a Rolling Stone, recorded in 1965, Dylans lyrics incorporate a wide range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture, initially inspired by the performances of Little Richard and the songwriting of Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, Dylan has amplified and personalized musical genres. Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards, and harmonica, backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour. His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, since 1994, Dylan has published seven books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. As a musician, Dylan has sold more than 100 million records and he has also received numerous awards including eleven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a citation for his profound impact on popular music and American culture. In May 2012, Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, in 2016, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition. Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in St. Marys Hospital on May 24,1941, in Duluth, Minnesota and he has a younger brother, David. Dylans paternal grandparents, Zigman and Anna Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa, in the Russian Empire and his maternal grandparents, Ben and Florence Stone, were Lithuanian Jews who arrived in the United States in 1902. Dylans father, Abram Zimmerman – an electric-appliance shop owner – and mother, Beatrice Beatty Stone, were part of a small, close-knit Jewish community. They lived in Duluth until Robert was six, when his father had polio and the returned to his mothers hometown, Hibbing. In his early years he listened to the radio—first to blues and country stations from Shreveport, Louisiana, and later and he formed several bands while attending Hibbing High School. In the Golden Chords, he performed covers of songs by Little Richard and their performance of Danny & the Juniors Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay at their high school talent show was so loud that the principal cut the microphone. In 1959, his high school yearbook carried the caption Robert Zimmerman, the same year, as Elston Gunnn, he performed two dates with Bobby Vee, playing piano and clapping
11.
Ticket to Ride
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Ticket to Ride is a song by the English rock group the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song was included on their 1965 studio album Help. Among music critics, Ian MacDonald describes the song as psychologically deeper than anything the Beatles had recorded before, Ticket to Ride appears in a sequence in the Beatles second feature film, Help. Live performances by the band were included in the Beatles at Shea Stadium concert film, on the album documenting their concerts at the Hollywood Bowl. Ticket to Ride was written by John Lennon, although credited to Lennon–McCartney, speaking in 1980, Lennon said that McCartneys contribution was limited to the way Ringo played the drums on the recording. The song is written in the key of A major, the song features a coda with a different tempo. Lennon said this section was one of his favourite bits in the song. McCartney was said to be responsible for the distinctive syncopated drum pattern of the song, while the lyrics describe a girl riding out of the life of the narrator, the inspiration of the title phrase is unclear. The Beatles played in Hamburg early in their career. Gaby Whitehill and Andrew Trendall of Gigwise have interpreted the song to be about a woman leaving her boyfriend to become a prostitute, the Beatles recorded Ticket to Ride on 15 February 1965 at EMIs Abbey Road Studios in London. Musicologist Walter Everett views the recording as a departure for the Beatles, due to the vocals. The songs main riff was played by George Harrison on his Rickenbacker 12-string guitar and was among the parts taped with the rhythm track. Author Mark Hertsgaard highlights the idea for this riff and for Starrs jagged, according to Harrison, however, the Rickenbacker riff was his own idea, based on the way Lennon strummed the chord when introducing the song to the band. Harrison also said that the motion of the riff then inspired the pattern that Starr decided to play. In March 1965, the Beatles and their manager, Brian Epstein, selected Ticket to Ride and Yes It Is to be the A- and B-sides, respectively, of the groups first single release of the year. The record was issued by EMIs Parlophone label on 9 April 1965 in the United Kingdom, Ticket to Ride topped Britains official singles chart for three weeks. In America, the song was number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for one week, according to Billboards Hits of the World listings for 15 May 1965, Ticket to Ride was also the top-selling single in Australia. The title was changed to Help. after the singles release, the song also appeared on the Beatles 1965 album Help. which was issued on 6 August in the UK and on 13 August in the US
12.
Cat Stevens
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Yusuf Islam, commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, humanitarian, and education philanthropist. His 1967 debut album reached the top 10 in the UK, and his albums Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat were both certified triple platinum in the US by the RIAA. His musical style consists of folk, pop, rock, and his 1972 album Catch Bull at Four spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard 200, and fifteen weeks at number one in the Australian ARIA Charts. He earned two ASCAP songwriting awards in 2005 and 2006 for The First Cut Is the Deepest, and his other hit songs include Father and Son, Wild World, Peace Train, Moonshadow, and Morning Has Broken. In 2007 he received the British Academys Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection, in December 1977, Stevens converted to Islam, and he adopted the name Yusuf Islam the following year. In 1979, he auctioned all his guitars for charity and left his career to devote himself to educational. He was embroiled in a controversy regarding comments he made in 1989 about the death fatwa on author Salman Rushdie. He has received two doctorates and awards for promoting peace from two organisations founded by Mikhail Gorbachev. In 2006, he returned to pop music – releasing his first album of new pop songs in 28 years, with that release and subsequent ones, he dropped the surname Islam from the album cover art – using the stage name Yusuf as a mononym. In 2009, he released the album Roadsinger, and in 2014, he released the album Tell Em Im Gone and he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014. His second North American tour since his resurgence, featuring 12 shows in intimate venues, steven Georgiou, born on 21 July 1948 in the Marylebone area of London, was the youngest child of a Greek Cypriot father, Stavros Georgiou, and a Swedish mother, Ingrid Wickman. He had a sister, Anita, and a brother. All family members worked in the restaurant and his parents divorced when he was about eight years old, but they continued to maintain the family restaurant and live above it. Although his father was Greek Orthodox and his mother a Baptist, Georgiou was sent to St. Joseph Roman Catholic Primary School, Macklin Street, which was closer to his fathers business on Drury Lane. Georgiou developed an interest in piano at a young age, eventually using the family baby grand piano to work out the chords. Inspired by the popularity of the Beatles, at 15 he extended his interest to the guitar, persuaded his father to pay £8 for his first instrument, Stevens emphasised that the advent of West Side Story in particular affected him, giving him a different view of life. He attended other local West End schools, where he says he was constantly in trouble and he was called the artist boy and mentions that I was beat up, but I was noticed. He went on to take a course of study at Hammersmith School of Art
13.
Port wine
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Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced exclusively in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a wine, though it also comes in dry, semi-dry. Fortified wines in the style of port are also produced outside Portugal, most notably in Australia, France, South Africa, Canada, India, Argentina, under European Union Protected Designation of Origin guidelines, only the product from Portugal may be labelled as port or Porto. Port is produced from grapes grown and processed in the demarcated Douro region, the fortification spirit is sometimes referred to as brandy but it bears little resemblance to commercial brandies. The wine is stored and aged, often in barrels stored in a Lodge as is the case in Vila Nova de Gaia. The Douro valley where port wine is produced was defined and established as a region, or appellation in 1756, making it the third oldest, after Chianti. The reaches of the valley of the Douro River in northern Portugal have a microclimate that is optimal for cultivation of olives, almonds, the demarcation of the Douro River Valley includes a broad swath of land of pre-Cambrian schist and granite. Beginning around the village of Barqueiros, the valley extends eastward nearly to the Spanish border, the region is protected from the influences of the Atlantic Ocean by the Serra do Marão mountains. The area is sub-divided into 3 official zones-the Baixo Corgo, the Cima Corgo, Baixo Corgo – The westernmost zone located downstream from the river Corgo, centred on the municipality of Peso da Régua. This region is the wettest port production zone, receiving an average of 900 mm, the grapes grown here are used mainly for the production of inexpensive ruby and tawny ports. Cima Corgo – Located further upstream from the Baixo Corgo, this region is centred on the town of Pinhão, the summertime average temperature of the regions are a few degrees higher and rainfall is about 200 mm less. The grapes grown in this zone are considered of higher quality, being used in bottlings of Vintage, Reserve, aged Tawny, Douro Superior – The easternmost zone extending nearly to the Spanish border. This is the least cultivated region of Douro, due in part to the difficulties of navigating the river past the rapids of Cachão da Valeira and this is the most arid and warmest region of the Douro. The overall terrain is flat with the potential for mechanization. Over a hundred varieties of grapes are sanctioned for port production, Touriga Nacional is widely considered the most desirable port grape but the difficulty in growing it and the small yields cause Touriga Francesa to be the most widely planted grape. White ports are produced the way as red ports, except that they use white grapes—Donzelinho Branco, Esgana-Cão, Folgasão, Gouveio, Malvasia Fina, Rabigato. While a few shippers have experimented with Ports produced from a variety of grapes. Grapes grown for port are generally characterised by their small, dense fruit which produce concentrated and long-lasting flavours, in 2013, there were 8.7 million cases of port sold,3. 6% less than the previous year, at a value of $499 million
14.
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
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The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, abbreviated in English as CPSU, was the founding and ruling political party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The party was founded in 1912 by the Bolsheviks, a group led by Vladimir Lenin which seized power in the aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917. The party was dissolved on 29 August 1991 on Soviet territory soon after a failed coup détat and was abolished on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory. The highest body within the CPSU was the party Congress, which convened every five years, when the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Orgburo. The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or some of the three offices concurrently—but never all three at the same time. The CPSU, according to its party statute, adhered to Marxism–Leninism, a based on the writings of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, a number of causes contributed to CPSUs loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Some historians have written that Gorbachevs policy of glasnost was the root cause, Gorbachev maintained that perestroika without glasnost was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the worlds first constitutionally socialist state, was established by the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the October Revolution. Immediately after the Revolution, the new, Lenin-led government implemented socialist reforms, including the transfer of estates, in this context, in 1918, RSDLP became Russian Communist Party and remained so until 1997. Lenin supported world revolution he sought peace with the Central Powers. The treaty was voided after the Allied victory in World War I, in 1921, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy, a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and recovery from the Civil War. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire in the Soviet Union, on 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924 and was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, after emerging victorious from a power struggle with Trotsky, Stalin obtained full control of the party and Stalinism was installed as the only ideology of the party. The partys official name was All-Union Communist Party in 1925, Stalins political purge greatly affected the partys configuration, as many party members were executed or sentenced for slave labour. Happening during the timespan of the Great Purge, fascism had ascened to power in Italy, seeing this as a potential threat, the Party actively sought to form collective security alliances with Anti-fascist western powers such as France and Britain
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Artemy Troitsky
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Art, Artem, Artemiy or Artemy Troitsky is a Russian journalist, music critic, concert promoter, broadcaster, and an academic who has taught classes on music journalism at Moscow State University. He was born in Yaroslavl, then in the Soviet Union, in 1988 he was described in the New York Times as the leading Soviet rock critic. Currently Troitsky is living in Tallinn, Estonia and works as a lecturer in Tallinn, back in the USSR, The True Story of Rock in Russia. London and Boston, Faber & Faber,1988, reviewed by Richard Stites in Slavic Review 48,2,308, by Alex Raksin in the Los Angeles Times, Nov.27,1988. Tusovka, Whos Who in the New Soviet Rock Culture, translated into Italian by Vincenzo Perna as Tusovka. Rock e stili nella nuova cultura sovietica, Artemy Troitsky, The Russia I Lost, New Statesman,27 November 2006. Artemy Troitsky, Someone still loves you, Boris, New Statesman 30 April 2007, Artemy Troitsky, Loyalty Card, New Statesman,29 November 2007
16.
Komsomol
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The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, although it was officially independent and referred to as the helper. The Komsomol in its earliest form was established in urban centers in 1918, during the early years, it was a Russian organization, known as the Russian Young Communist League, or RKSM. During 1922, with the unification of the USSR, it was reformed into an all-union agency and it was the final stage of three youth organizations with members up to age 28, graduated at 14 from the Young Pioneers, and at nine from the Little Octobrists. Before the February Revolution of 1917 the Bolsheviks did not display any interest in establishing or maintaining a youth division, after the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922 ended, the Soviet government under Lenin introduced a semi-capitalist economic policy to stabilize Russia’s floundering economy. This reform, the New Economic Policy, introduced a new policy of moderation and discipline. Lenin himself stressed the importance of education of young Soviet citizens in building a new society. The first Komsomol Congress met in 1918 under the patronage of the Bolshevik Party, Party intervention in 1922-1923 proved marginally successful in recruiting members by presenting the ideal Komsomolets as a foil to the bourgeois NEPman. However, the party was not very successful overall in recruiting Russian youth during the NEP period and this came about because of conflict and disillusionment among Soviet youth who romanticised the spontaneity and destruction characteristic of War Communism and the Civil War period. They saw it as their duty, and the duty of the Communist Party itself, however, the NEP had the opposite effect, after it started, many aspects of bourgeois social behavior began to reemerge. The contrast between the Good Communist extolled by the Party and the bourgeois capitalism fostered by NEP confused many young people, as a result, there was a major slump in interest and membership in the Party-oriented Komsomol. In March 1926, Komsomol membership reached a NEP-period peak of 1,750,000 members, only when Stalin came to power and abandoned the NEP in the first Five Year Plan did membership increase drastically. The youngest people eligible for Komsomol membership were fourteen years old, the upper age-limit for ordinary personnel was twenty-eight, but Komsomol functionaries could be older. Younger children joined the allied Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization, while membership was nominally voluntary, those who failed to join had no access to officially sponsored holidays and found it very difficult to pursue higher education. The Komsomol also served as a pool of labor and political activism. Active members received privileges and preferences in promotion, for example, Yuri Andropov, CPSU General Secretary in succession to Leonid Brezhnev, achieved political importance through work with the Komsomol organization of Karelia in 1940-1944. At its largest, during the 1970s, the Komsomol had tens of millions of members, the government, unions and the Komsomol jointly introduced Centers for Scientific and Technical Creativity for Youth. At the same time, many Komsomol managers joined and directed the Russian Regional, folklore quickly coined a motto, The Komsomol is a school of Capitalism, hinting at Vladimir Lenins Trade unions are a school of Communism
17.
Leonid Brezhnev
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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in duration, during Brezhnevs rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. His tenure as leader was marked by the beginning of an era of economic, Brezhnev was born in Kamenskoye into a Russian workers family in 1906. After graduating from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum, he became an engineer in the iron and steel industry. He joined Komsomol in 1923, and in 1929 became a member of the CPSU. He was drafted into military service during World War II. While at the helm of the USSR, Brezhnev pushed for détente between the Eastern and Western countries. However, in December 1981 he decided not to intervene in Poland, instead allowing the countrys government to impose martial law. After years of declining health, Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982 and was succeeded in his post as General Secretary by Yuri Andropov. Brezhnev had fostered a cult of personality, although not nearly to the degree as Stalin. Mikhail Gorbachev, who would lead the USSR from 1985 to 1991, denounced his legacy, in spite of this, opinion polls in Russia show Brezhnev to be the most popular Russian leader of the 20th century. Brezhnev was born on 19 December 1906 in Kamianske in Ukraine, to metalworker Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev and his wife and his parents used to live in Brezhnevo before moving to Kamenskoe. Brezhnevs ethnicity was specified as Ukrainian in some documents, including his passport, like many youths in the years after the Russian Revolution of 1917, he received a technical education, at first in land management where he started as a land surveyor and then in metallurgy. He graduated from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum in 1935 and became an engineer in the iron. Brezhnev joined the Communist Party youth organisation, the Komsomol, in 1923, in 1935 and 1936, Brezhnev served his compulsory military service, and after taking courses at a tank school, he served as a political commissar in a tank factory. Later in 1936, he director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum. In 1936, he was transferred to the center of Dnipropetrovsk and, in 1939, he became Party Secretary in Dnipropetrovsk. As a survivor of Stalins Great Purge of 1937–39, he was able to quickly as the purges created numerous openings in the senior and middle ranks of the Party
18.
KGB
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The KGB, an initialism for Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its break-up in 1991. Formed in 1954, as a successor of such preceding agencies as the Cheka, NKGB, and MGB. It was the government agency of union-republican jurisdiction, acting as internal security, intelligence. Similar agencies were constituted in each of the republics of the Soviet Union aside from Russia and consisted of ministries, state committees. The KGB was a service and was governed by army laws and regulations. While most of the KGB archives remain classified, two documentary sources are available. After the dissolution of the USSR, the KGB was split into the Federal Security Service, after breaking away from the Republic of Georgia in the early 1990s with Russian help, the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia established its own KGB. A1983 Time magazine article reported that the KGB was the worlds most effective information-gathering organization, at best, the compromised spy was either returned to the Soviet Union or was declared persona non grata and expelled by the government of the target country. The illegal resident spied, unprotected by diplomatic immunity, and worked independently of Soviet diplomatic, in its early history, the KGB valued illegal spies more than legal spies, because illegal spies infiltrated their targets with greater ease. The KGB classified its spies as agents and controllers, the false-identity or legend assumed by a USSR-born illegal spy was elaborate, using the life of either a live double or a dead double. In the 1980s, the glasnost liberalisation of Soviet society provoked KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov to lead the August 1991 Soviet coup détat attempt to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev, the thwarted coup détat ended the KGB on 6 November 1991. The KGBs successors are the police agency FSB and the espionage agency SVR. The GRU recruited the ideological agent Julian Wadleigh, who became a State Department diplomat in 1936, the NKVDs first US operation was establishing the legal residency of Boris Bazarov and the illegal residency of Iskhak Akhmerov in 1934. Throughout, the Communist Party USA and its General Secretary Earl Browder, helped NKVD recruit Americans, working in government, business, moreover, when Whittaker Chambers, formerly Alger Hisss courier, approached the Roosevelt Government—to identify the Soviet spies Duggan, White, and others—he was ignored. To wit, British Manhattan Project team physicist Klaus Fuchs was the agent of the Rosenberg spy ring. In 1944, the New York City residency infiltrated the top secret Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, by recruiting Theodore Hall, the KGB failed to rebuild most of its US illegal resident networks. The aftermath of the Second Red Scare and the crisis in the CPUSA hampered recruitment, the last major illegal resident, Rudolf Abel, was betrayed by his assistant, Reino Häyhänen, in 1957. One notable KGB success occurred in 1967, with the recruitment of US Navy Chief Warrant Officer John Anthony Walker
19.
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 and he was the countrys head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991. Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family and he graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party, in 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief interregna of Andropov and Chernenko, before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in Western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level. Gorbachevs policies of glasnost and perestroika and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War. He was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 and this was Gorbachevs third attempt to establish a political party, having started the Social Democratic Party of Russia in 2001 and the Union of Social Democrats in 2007. Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, into a mixed Russian-Ukrainian family of migrants from Voronezh, as a child, Gorbachev experienced the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. He recalled in a memoir that In that terrible year nearly half the population of my village, Privolnoye, starved to death. Both of his grandfathers were arrested on charges in the 1930s. His father was a combine harvester operator and World War II veteran and his mother, Maria Panteleyevna Gorbacheva, was a kolkhoz worker. He was brought up mainly by his Ukrainian maternal grandparents, in his teens, he operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law, in 1967 he qualified as an agricultural economist via a correspondence masters degree at the Stavropol Institute of Agriculture. While at the university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and soon very active within the party. Gorbachev met his wife, Raisa Titarenko, daughter of a Ukrainian railway engineer. They married in September 1953 and moved to Stavropol upon graduation and she gave birth to their only child, daughter Irina Mikhailovna Virganskaya, in 1957. Raisa Gorbacheva died of leukemia in 1999, Gorbachev has two granddaughters and one great granddaughter. Gorbachev attended the important twenty-second Party Congress in October 1961, where Nikita Khrushchev announced a plan to surpass the U. S. in per capita production within twenty years, Gorbachev rose in the Communist League hierarchy and worked his way up through territorial leagues of the party
20.
Perestroika
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The literal meaning of perestroika is “restructuring”, referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system. Perestroika is sometimes argued to be a cause of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, Perestroika allowed more independent actions from various ministries and introduced some market-like reforms. The goal of the perestroika, however, was not to end the command economy, Perestroika and resistance to it are often cited as major catalysts leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In May 1985, Gorbachev gave a speech in Leningrad in which he admitted the slowing-down of the economic development and this was the first time in Soviet history that a Soviet leader had done so. During the initial period of Mikhail Gorbachevs time in power, he talked about modifying central planning, Gorbachev and his team of economic advisors then introduced more fundamental reforms, which became known as perestroika. In July 1987, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union passed the Law on State Enterprise, the law stipulated that state enterprises were free to determine output levels based on demand from consumers and other enterprises. Enterprises had to fulfill orders, but they could dispose of the remaining output as they saw fit. However, at the time the state still held control over the means of production for these enterprises. Enterprises bought input from suppliers at negotiated contract prices, under the law, enterprises became self-financing, that is, they had to cover expenses through revenues. No longer was the government to rescue unprofitable enterprises that could face bankruptcy, finally, the law shifted control over the enterprise operations from ministries to elected workers collectives. Gosplans responsibilities were to supply general guidelines and national investment priorities, the Law on Cooperatives, enacted in May 1988, was perhaps the most radical of the economic reforms during the early part of the Gorbachev era. For the first time since Vladimir Lenins New Economic Policy was abolished in 1928, the law permitted private ownership of businesses in the services, manufacturing, the law initially imposed high taxes and employment restrictions, but it later revised these to avoid discouraging private-sector activity. Under this provision, cooperative restaurants, shops, and manufacturers became part of the Soviet scene, Gorbachev brought perestroika to the Soviet Unions foreign economic sector with measures that Soviet economists considered bold at that time. His program virtually eliminated the monopoly that the Ministry of Foreign Trade had once held on most trade operations, in addition, regional and local organizations and individual state enterprises were permitted to conduct foreign trade. This change was an attempt to redress a major imperfection in the Soviet foreign trade regime, after potential Western partners complained, the government revised the regulations to allow majority foreign ownership and control. Under the terms of the Joint Venture Law, the Soviet partner supplied labor, infrastructure, the foreign partner supplied capital, technology, entrepreneurial expertise, and in many cases, products and services of world competitive quality. Gorbachevs economic changes did not do much to restart the sluggish economy in the late 1980s. The reforms decentralised things to some extent, although price controls remained, as did the rubles inconvertibility, by 1990 the government had virtually lost control over economic conditions
21.
Igor Butman
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Igor Butman PAR is a Russian jazz saxophonist born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1961. Butman hold a dual citizenship from the US and Russian Federation and he is considered to be a virtuoso saxophonist, and a skilled bandleader. American saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr. was instrumental in introducing Igor Butman to American audiences by featuring the Russian saxophonist on his 1988 album, Then, American trumpet player Wynton Marsalis has also been a strong champion of Igor Butman. Former US President Bill Clinton has called Butman my favorite living saxophone player, was born in Leningrad, USSR on October 27,1961. His brother is Oleg Butman, a well known jazz drummer, in 1976 he entered the Rimsky-Korsakov College of Music. In 1977, he decided to switch from the clarinet to the jazz saxophone. Besides being taught by the musician Gennady Goldstein, he took lessons from nightly broadcasts of jazz from 11,15 p. m. to midnight on Voice of America. In 1983, Butman played in Oleg Lundstrems big band, in 1984, he was invited by Nick Levinovsky to join the jazz group Allegro and played with them for three years. After Butman immigrated to America in 1987, he went on to major in Performance and he is featured on Grover Washington Jr. s Columbia release Then and Now soloing on Stolen Moments, Stella By Starlight and Butmans own composition French Connections. He appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America and numerous other international programs, moving to New York in 1989, Butman worked with The Lionel Hampton Orchestra. In 1992, Butman recorded with actor/musician Michael Moriartys Quintet the album Live at the Fat Tuesdays on DRG Records. In 1993, he released his solo album Falling Out mostly with his own composition, next year Butman collaborated with Partners in Time, joined by Gary Burton, in the recording of their album Equinost. When Wynton Marsalis performed in Russia in 1998, he invited Butman to be a guest soloist with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, next year Marsalis was a featured guest with the Igor Butman Big Band at Le Club. On September 18 &20,2003 Jazz at Lincoln Center opened its 2003-04 season with a collaboration between the renowned Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Igor Butman Big Band. He has a feeling for the music and for people. Igor Butman is my main man, one of the Butman’s accomplishments as a producer is The Triumph of Jazz, a festival which takes place annually in the biggest concert halls of Russia. Participants of the fest have included TAKE6, Elvin Jones, Gary Burton, Gino Vanelli, Toots Thielemans, Larry Corryell, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Joey DeFrancesco etc. Butman used to be a director of a Moscow jazz venue Le Club since its opening in 1998 until its closure in 2006
22.
Red Wave
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Red Wave,4 Underground Bands from the Soviet Union was a split double album released in 1986 and featuring Russian rock bands Aquarium, Kino, Alisa, and Strannye Igry, all from Leningrad. It was the first release of Russian rock music into the United States, the material for this compilation was recorded on a non-commercial basis by the four Leningrad bands and smuggled by Joanna Stingray to the US. Production and release was done by the Los Angeles-based indie label Big Time Records on June 27,1986, three of the four bands on this album have later become icons of the Russian rock movement and are still widely known and followed in Russia. From albums Taboo, The Children of December and Radio Africa. Пепел –3,10 Сегодня ночью –4,36 Танцы на грани весны –4,25 Жажда –3,56 Сны о чём-то большем –4,20 Рок-н-ролл мёртв only on a record in short version All songs from the album Energy
23.
Kino (band)
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Kino was an iconic Soviet post-punk band headed by Viktor Tsoi. It was one of the most famous rock groups in the Soviet Union, Kino was formed in 1981 by the members of two earlier groups from Leningrad, Palata No.6 and Piligrim. They initially called themselves Garin i Giperboloidy after Aleksei Tolstois novel The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin, the group consisted of Viktor Tsoi, guitarist Aleksei Rybin, and drummer Oleg Valinskiy. They began rehearsing, but Valinskiy was drafted and had to leave the band, in the spring of 1982, they began to perform at the Leningrad Rock Club and met with the influential underground musician Boris Grebenshikov. It was around this time that they changed the bands name to Kino. The name was chosen because it was considered short and synthetic, Tsoi and Rybin said later that they had got the idea for the name itself after having seen a bright cinema sign. Kino released their album,45, in 1982. Since the band consisted of two members, Grebenshikov suggested that members of his band Aquarium assist the band in recording the album. These included cellist Vsevolod Gakkel, flutist Andrei Romanov, and bassist Michael Feinstein-Vasilev, since there was no drummer, they used a drum machine instead. This simple composition made the album lively and bright. Lyrically, it resembled earlier Soviet bard music for its romanticism of city life, the album consisted of thirteen songs and was named 45 in reference to its length. In late 1982, Kino attempted to record an album at the studio of the Maly Drama Theatre, along with drummer Valery Kirillov. However, Tsoi lost interest in the project and they ceased recording, in the winter of 1983, they played several shows in Leningrad and Moscow, and were sometimes accompanied by Aquarium drummer Peter Troschenkov. Rybin was replaced by rehearsal bassist Maxim Kolosov and later, guitarist Yuri Kasparyan, according to Grebenshikov, Kasparyan was a poor guitar player initially, but he quickly progressed and eventually became the second most important member of Kino. With Kolosov and Kasparyan, Kino performed their concert at the Leningrad Rock Club. The bands responsibilities were split evenly between Tsoi and Rybin, Tsoi was in charge of the creative component, writing music and lyrics, while Rybin did all the administrative work, such as organizing concerts, rehearsals and recording sessions. In March 1983, a conflict broke out between them, the culmination of multiple differences between the two musicians. Tsoi was particularly annoyed that Rybin performed his songs, and not his own writing, eventually, the two stopped talking, and Rybin left the band
24.
David A. Stewart
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David Allan Dave Stewart is an English musician, songwriter and record producer, best known for Eurythmics, his successful professional partnership with Annie Lennox. He is usually credited as David A. Stewart, to avoid confusion with other musicians named Dave Stewart and he won Best British Producer at the 1986,1987 and 1990 Brit Awards. Stewart was born in Sunderland, England, in 1952 and he attended Bede Grammar School for Boys, whilst still in his teens, he secured a record deal as part of folk-rock band Longdancer. Despite being signed to Elton Johns record label, The Rocket Record Company, after leaving Wearside Stewart then spent several years living in squats in London. In late 1976, he was introduced to Annie Lennox by Paul Jacobs, soon, Stewart and Lennox became romantically involved. By 1977, the pair had teamed up with Sunderland musician Peet Coombes, the band then developed into The Tourists who enjoyed modest success, including a hit in 1979 with a cover of the Dusty Springfield hit I Only Want to Be with You. The Tourists split up in 1980, as did Stewart and Lennox and they formed a new musical project named Eurythmics. After a string of hit singles and albums, the duo split in 1990, Lennox and Stewart worked together again in 2005, recording two new tracks for the greatest hits package Ultimate Collection, released to coincide with Eurythmics 25th anniversary. When Eurythmics dissolved in 1990, Stewart moved to France and immediately released an album with his new band The Spiritual Cowboys, the song Party Town was featured in the 1990 film Flatliners. A second album followed in 1991, both albums were Gold in France, where Stewart concentrated his efforts. In 1992, Stewart collaborated with singer Terry Hall on the project Vegas, the duo released one self-titled album but this was commercially unsuccessful, though one of the singles from the album made the UK Top 40. In 1993, Stewart appeared in an Apple Inc. advertisement for the Power Macintosh in which he riffed on the word power and he also had a small cameo as a computer hacker in the 1995 film Hackers. In 1994, Stewart released an album, Greetings from the Gutter. The album was not a success, though Stewart scored a minor UK hit with the single Heart Of Stone which reached number 36. He then released another album, Sly-Fi, first on the internet, in 1997, Stewart released an album Come Alive with the actress and singer Rhona Mitra. In 1999, he produced an album, Female Icon. In November 2002, Stewart worked with former South African president Nelson Mandela and he then began organising the 46664 campaign and series of concerts in the fight against HIV/AIDS in South Africa. In 2007, Stewart announced on his MySpace page that he would be playing live concerts showcasing his entire career, according to the announcement, he was to be accompanied by various guest musicians as well as a 30 piece orchestra
25.
Eurythmics
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Eurythmics were a British music duo consisting of members Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart. Stewart and Lennox were both previously in the band The Tourists, who split up in 1980, Eurythmics were formed that year in London. The duo released their first album, In the Garden, in 1981 to little fanfare, the title track was a worldwide hit, topping the charts in various countries including the US. The duo went on to release a string of hit singles, by this time Stewart was a sought-after record producer, while Lennox began a solo recording career in 1992 with her debut album Diva. After almost a decade apart, Eurythmics reunited to record their album, Peace. They reunited again in 2005 to release the single Ive Got a Life, as part of a new Eurythmics compilation album, Eurythmics have sold an estimated 75 million records worldwide. Lennox and Stewart met in 1975 in a restaurant in London and they first played together in 1976 in the punk rock band The Catch. After releasing one single as The Catch in 1977, the band evolved into The Tourists, Stewart and Lennox were also romantically involved. The Tourists achieved some success, but the experience was reportedly an unhappy one. Personal and musical tensions existed within the group, whose main songwriter was Peet Coombes and they were interested in creating pop music, but wanted freedom to experiment with electronics and the avant-garde. It was in a hotel in Wagga Wagga, Australia, while playing around with a portable mini-synthesizer that Lennox, the duo signed to RCA Records. At this time, Lennox and Stewart also split as a couple, during the period that Lennox and Stewart were in The Tourists, and later as Eurythmics, they were managed by Kenny Smith and Sandra Turnbull of Hyper Kinetics Ltd. They recorded their first album in Cologne with Conny Plank and this resulted in the album In the Garden, released in October 1981. The album mixed psychedelic, krautrock and electropop influences, and featured contributions from Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit, drummer Clem Burke, Robert Görl, a couple of the songs were co-written by guitarist Roger Pomphrey. The album was not a commercial success, however, the three new singles they released that year all performed badly on initial release in the UK. Lennox apparently suffered at least one nervous breakdown during this period, Eurythmics commercial breakthrough came with their second album, Sweet Dreams, released in January 1983. The successful title track featured a dark and powerful sequenced synth bass line, the song reached no.2 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming one of the years biggest sellers, and later topped the US charts. The bands fortunes changed immensely from this moment on, and Lennox quickly became a pop icon and their previous single, Love Is a Stranger, was also re-released and became another chart success
26.
Alexander Vertinsky
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Alexander Nikolayevich Vertinsky was a Russian and Soviet artist, poet, singer, composer, cabaret artist and actor who exerted seminal influence on the Russian tradition of artistic singing. Born out of wedlock, Vertinsky was brought up by his fathers sister in Kiev, Ukraine and he was expelled from school in 1905 and tried a variety of jobs before starting to earn his living by contributing short stories to the Kievan periodicals. In 1912, Vertinsky and his moved to Moscow, where he failed in his ambition to join Konstantin Stanislavskis Moscow Art Theatre. During that time, he addicted to cocaine, a habit that would claim the life of his sister. By 1916, Vertinsky started to employ a scenic figure of Pierrot, with powdered face, singing miniature novellas-in-song known as ariettas, each song contained a prologue, exposition, culmination, and a tragic finale. The novice performer was christened the Russian Pierrot, gained renown, became an object of imitation, admiration, vilified in the press, simultaneously with his booming singing career, he played screen bit parts in Aleksandr Khanzhonkovs silent movies. From that time stems a lifelong friendship with Ivan Mozzhukhin and his famous piece Vashi paltsy pakhnut ladanom was dedicated to another film star, Vera Kholodnaya. By November 1920, Vertinsky decided to leave Russia with the bulk of his clientele and he performed in Constantinople and toured Romanian Bessarabia, where he was declared a Soviet agent. In 1923, he performed in Poland and Germany, then moved to Paris, the Great Depression forced him to join the community of Shanghai Russians. It was in China that he met his wife and the oldest daughter, in 1943 the Soviet government allowed Vertinsky to return to Russia. Despite lack of coverage, he performed about two thousand concerts in the USSR, touring from Sakhalin to Kaliningrad. In order to feed his family, he appeared in Soviet films, often playing prerevolutionary aristocrats. His role of an anti-Communist cardinal in The Doomed Conspiracy even won him the Stalin Prize for 1951, the artist died on May 21,1957, at Hotel Astoria in Leningrad. Both of his daughters, Marianna and Anastasiya, made careers in Soviet cinema. The former conducted a much-aired liaison with Andrei Konchalovsky, while the latter married his brother Nikita Mikhalkov, Vertinsky is still influential in Russian musical culture, and has been covered by the likes of Vladimir Vysotsky and Boris Grebenshikov. There is even an album of electronic lounge covers, by the Cosmos Sound Club, a minor planet 3669 Vertinskij, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in 1982 is named after him. Another Alexander Vertinskys Biography Alexander Vertinsky on softpanorama Alexander Vertinsky on YouTube
27.
Thomas Malory
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Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte dArthur. Since the late century, he has generally been identified as Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire, a knight, land-owner. Previously, it was suggested by antiquary John Leland and John Bale that he was Welsh, the name could also be rooted in Irish & Scottish Gaelic and mean follower of the king, as in maol and ry or ree. Maol or Máel is a root of indigenous names and is found in the name Malmesbury which was founded by the Irish scholar Máel Dub meaning the dark follower. Arthurian literature originates in the Irish & Scottish Gaelic traditions as Norman interpretation and translation, occasionally, other candidates are put forward for authorship of Le Morte dArthur, but the supporting evidence for their claim has been described as no more than circumstantial. Most of what is known about Malory stems from the accounts describing him in the found in the Winchester Manuscript. He is described as a knyght presoner, distinguishing him from the six individuals also bearing the name Thomas Malory in the 15th century when Le Morte dArthur was written. At the end of the Tale of King Arthur is written, For this was written by a knight prisoner Thomas Malleorre, that God send him good recovery. At the end of The Tale of Sir Gareth, And I pray you all that readeth this tale to pray for him that this wrote, that God send him good deliverance soon and hastily. At the conclusion of the Tale of Sir Tristram, Here endeth the second book of Sir Tristram de Lyones, which was drawn out of the French by Sir Thomas Malleorre, knight, as Jesu be his help. Finally, at the conclusion of the book, The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthure Sanz Gwerdon par le shyvalere Sir Thomas Malleorre, knight. For this book was ended the year of the reign of King Edward the Fourth by Sir Thomas Maleore, knight, as Jesu help him for his great might. The author was educated, as some of his material was drawn out of the French, a claimants age must also fit the time of writing. By far the likeliest candidate for the authorship is Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire, H. Oskar Sommer first proposed this identification in his edition of Le Morte dArthur published in 1890, and George Lyman Kittredge, a professor at Harvard, provided the evidence in 1896. Kittredge showed Malory as a soldier and a member of Parliament, Helen Cooper referred to his life as one that reads more like an account of exemplary thuggery than chivalry. Malory was born to Sir John Malory of Winwick, Northamptonshire, who had served as a Justice of the Peace in Warwickshire and as a member of Parliament, and Lady Phillipa Malory, heiress of Newbold. He was born after 1415 and before 1418, judging by the fact that he attained his majority between 1434 and 1439. He was knighted before 8 October 1441, became a soldier, and served under the Duke of Warwick—but all dates are vague
28.
Annie Lennox
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Ann Annie Lennox, OBE is a Scottish singer, songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. With a total of eight Brit Awards, including Best British Female Artist six times and she has also been named the Brits Champion of Champions. Lennox embarked on a career in 1992 with her debut album, Diva. To date, she has released six studio albums and a compilation album. Aside from her eight Brit Awards, she has collected four Grammy Awards. In 2002, Lennox received a Billboard Century Award, the highest accolade from Billboard Magazine. In 2004, she won both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Original Song for Into the West, written for the soundtrack to the feature film The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King. In addition to her career as a musician, Lennox is also a political and social activist, notable for raising money and awareness for HIV/ AIDS as it affects women and children in Africa. In 2011, Lennox was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for her tireless charity campaigns, on 4 June 2012 she performed at the Queens Diamond Jubilee Concert in front of Buckingham Palace. Lennox performed the song Little Bird during the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in London on 12 August 2012, Lennox has been named The Greatest White Soul Singer Alive by VH1 and one of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time by Rolling Stone. In 2012, she was rated No.22 on VH1s 100 Greatest Women in Music and she has earned the distinction of most successful female British artist in UK music history due to her commercial success since the early 1980s. As of June 2008, including her work within Eurythmics, Lennox had sold over 80 million records worldwide, Annie Lennox was born on Christmas Day 1954 in Summerfield Maternity hospital, Aberdeen, the daughter of Dorothy and Thomas Allison Lennox. In the 1970s, Lennox won a place at the Royal Academy of Music in London and she lived on a student grant and worked at part-time jobs for extra money. Lennox was unhappy during her time at the Royal Academy and spent her time wondering what direction she could take. Lennoxs flute teachers final report stated, Ann has not always sure of where to direct her efforts. She is very, very able, however, two years later, Lennox reported to the Academy, I have had to work as a waitress, barmaid, and shop assistant to keep me when not in musical work. She also played and sang with a few bands, such as Windsong, during the period of her course, in 2006, the academy made her an honorary Fellow. Lennox also was made a Fellow of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, in 1976, Lennox was flautist with a band called Dragons Playground, leaving before they appeared on TVs New Faces
29.
Billy Mackenzie
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William MacArthur Billy MacKenzie was a Scottish singer, with a distinctive high tenor voice, he was best known as a member of The Associates. MacKenzie was born and grew up in Dundee, as a youngster, he lived in Park Avenue in the Stobswell area and attended St Marys Forebank Primary School and St Michaels Secondary School. He led a lifestyle, decamping to New Zealand at the age of 16. Here he married Chloe Dummar, the sister-in-law of his Aunt Veronica and he left her after three months of marriage and returned to Dundee, and the two never had contact again. Chloe Dummar filed for divorce in 1980, and MacKenzie did not contest the filing, chloes brother, Melvin Dummar, claimed to be the one sixteenth beneficiary of the estate of Howard Hughes, until the case was thrown out in 1978. MacKenzie returned to Scotland where he met Alan Rankine and in 1976 formed the Ascorbic Ones and they changed the name to Mental Torture and finally Associates in 1979. Rankine left Associates in 1982, but MacKenzie continued to work under the name for years until he began releasing material under his own name in the 1990s. Mackenzie also collaborated with other artists during his career. In 1987, he wrote lyrics for two tracks on Yellos album One Second, Moon on Ice, which he himself, and The Rhythm Divine. A version sung by MacKenzie was released on the tape and CD versions of Associates Popera compilation), MacKenzie also collaborated with B. E. F. for their two albums Music of Quality and Distinction Volume I & Volume II. On 22 January 1997, depression and the death of his mother are believed to have contributed to Mackenzies suicide and he overdosed on a combination of paracetamol and prescription medication in the garden shed of his fathers house in Auchterhouse. He was the subject of a biography by Tom Doyle, The Glamour Chase, siouxsie Sioux wrote the song Say, revealing in the lyrics that they were going to meet just before his death. The song was released as a single by The Creatures in 1999, for her Medúlla album, Björk considered singing a beyond the grave duet with Mackenzie using recordings given to her by his father, but eventually decided against it. Between 9–27 June 2009, a play entitled Balgay Hill about the story of Mackenzies life was showing at Dundee Repertory Theatre, in Mackenzies home town. It tells the story of his life through the eyes of four characters. The novel Spying on Strange Men by Carole Morin, contains the section, ″I checked my face in the mirror. One day at Billy′s house his dad brought in a cake and Billy said and that image kept replaying in my mind, another memory of something I didnt witness, as James came out of the bathroom. Mackenzie’s death affected me in a way that Ian Curtiss didn’t, Mackenzie should have outgrown his gloom and become an eccentric old man
30.
Chrissie Hynde
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Christine Ellen Chrissie Hynde is an American musician who is best known as a founding member of the rock band The Pretenders. Inspired by hippie counter-culture, Hynde worked in London with Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at their clothing store, in 1978, she formed her own band, The Pretenders, with Pete Farndon, James Honeyman-Scott and Martin Chambers. As singer, songwriter and guitarist, she has been the only constant member of the band throughout its history and she has also released a number of songs with other musicians including Frank Sinatra and UB40. Hynde and The Pretenders were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, Hynde was born in Akron, Ohio, the daughter of a part-time secretary and a Yellow Pages manager. She graduated from Firestone High School in Akron, but stated that I was never too interested in high school, I mean, I never went to a dance, I never went out on a date, I never went steady. It became pretty awful for me, except, of course, I could go see bands, and that was the kick. I used to go to Cleveland just to see any band, so I was in love a lot of the time, but mostly with guys in bands that I had never met. For me, knowing that Brian Jones was out there, and later that Iggy Pop was out there, I had, uh, bigger things in mind, like girls. Hynde became interested in hippie counterculture, Eastern mysticism, and vegetarianism, while attending Kent State Universitys Art School for three years, she joined a band called Sat. Mat. which included Mark Mothersbaugh, later of Devo, Hynde was also caught up in the Kent State shootings on May 4,1970 in which the boyfriend of one of her friends was amongst the four victims. Hynde also developed an interest in the UK music magazine NME, with her art background, Hynde landed a job in an architectural firm but left after eight months. It was then that she met rock journalist Nick Kent and landed a position at NME, writing what she described as half-baked philosophical drivel. However, this not to last and Hynde later found herself working at Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwoods then-little-known clothing store. At one point she tried to convince Johnny Rotten and then Sid Vicious to marry her, just in order for her to get a work permit. Hyndes version of this episode has it that Rotten offered to go to an office with me and do the unmentionable but when he subsequently pulled out. Upon arrival at the office the following morning, they found it closed for an extended holiday and were unable to attend the following day due to Vicious making a court appearance. Hynde then attempted to start a band in France before her return to Cleveland in 1975, Hynde went back to France in 1976 to try to form a band, but it did not work out. She left Kent for Michael Fradji Memmi, bass player of The Frenchies, for one show at the Olympia Theatre when their singer had left, she took the lead singer duties
31.
Blues
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Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also a part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove, Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society. Many elements, such as the format and the use of blue notes. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later and it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century, the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues, World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a form called blues rock evolved. The term blues may have come from blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness, the phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, by the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, in lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. The lyrics of traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. Two of the first published songs, Dallas Blues and Saint Louis Blues, were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times, the lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody
32.
Chanson
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A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specializing in chansons is known as a chanteur or chanteuse, the earliest chansons were the epic poems performed to simple monophonic melodies by a professional class of jongleurs or ménestrels. These usually recounted the deeds of past heroes, legendary. The Song of Roland is the most famous of these, the chanson courtoise or grand chant was an early form of monophonic chanson, the chief lyric poetic genre of the trouvères. It was an adaptation to Old French of the Occitan canso and it was practised in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Thematically, as its name implies, it was a song of courtly love, some later chansons were polyphonic and some had refrains and were called chansons avec des refrains. A Crusade song was known as a chanson de croisade, in its typical specialized usage, the word chanson refers to a polyphonic French song of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Early chansons tended to be in one of the formes fixes—ballade, the earliest chansons were for two, three or four voices, with first three becoming the norm, expanding to four voices by the sixteenth century. Sometimes, the singers were accompanied by instruments, the first important composer of chansons was Guillaume de Machaut, who composed three-voice works in the formes fixes during the 14th century. Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois, who wrote so-called Burgundian chansons, were the most important chanson composers of the next generation and their chansons, while somewhat simple in style, are also generally in three voices with a structural tenor. Musicologist David Fallows includes the Burgundian repertoire in A Catalogue of Polyphonic Songs 1415-1480 and these works are typically still 3 voices, with an active upper voice pitched above two lower voices usually sharing the same range. The first book of music printed from movable type was Harmonice Musices Odhecaton and this genre sometimes featured music that was meant to be evocative of certain imagery such as birds or the marketplace. Many of these Parisian works were published by Pierre Attaingnant, composers of their generation, as well as later composers, such as Orlando de Lassus, were influenced by the Italian madrigal. Many early instrumental works were ornamented variations on chansons, with this becoming the canzone. French solo song developed in the late 16th century, probably from the aforementioned Parisian works, louis Niedermeyer, under the particular spell of Schubert, was a pivotal figure in this movement, followed by Édouard Lalo, Felicien David and many others. Another offshoot of chanson, called chanson réaliste, was a musical genre in France. Among the better-known performers of the genre are Damia, Fréhel, chanson can be distinguished from the rest of French pop music by following the rhythms of French language, rather than those of English, and a higher standard for lyrics. Canzone Russian chanson French historical chanson panorama Brown, Howard Mayer, in The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham
33.
Lord Byron
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George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS, commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet, peer, politician, and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Among his best-known works are the narrative poems, Don Juan and Childe Harolds Pilgrimage. Byron is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential and he travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years with the struggling poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in his life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi, ethel Colburn Mayne states that George Gordon Byron was born on 22 January 1788 in a house on 24 Holles Street in London. However, Robert Charles Dallas in his Recollections states that Byron was born in Dover and he was the son of Captain John Mad Jack Byron and his second wife, the former Catherine Gordon, a descendant of Cardinal Beaton and heiress of the Gight estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Byrons father had seduced the married Marchioness of Carmarthen and, after she divorced her husband. His treatment of her was described as brutal and vicious, in order to claim his second wifes estate in Scotland, Byrons father took the additional surname Gordon, becoming John Byron Gordon, and he was occasionally styled John Byron Gordon of Gight. Byron himself used this surname for a time and was registered at school in Aberdeen as George Byron Gordon, at the age of 10, he inherited the English Barony of Byron of Rochdale, becoming Lord Byron, and eventually dropped the double surname. Byrons paternal grandparents were Vice-Admiral the Hon. John Foulweather Jack Byron, vice Admiral John Byron had circumnavigated the globe, and was the younger brother of the 5th Baron Byron, known as the Wicked Lord. He was christened, at St Marylebone Parish Church, George Gordon Byron after his maternal grandfather George Gordon of Gight, a descendant of James I of Scotland, Mad Jack Byron married his second wife for the same reason that he married his first, her fortune. In a move to avoid his creditors, Catherine accompanied her husband to France in 1786. He was born on 22 January in lodgings at Holles Street in London, Catherine moved back to Aberdeenshire in 1790, where Byron spent his childhood. His father soon joined them in their lodgings in Queen Street, Catherine regularly experienced mood swings and bouts of melancholy, which could be partly explained by her husbands continuing to borrow money from her. As a result, she fell even further into debt to support his demands and it was one of these importunate loans that allowed him to travel to Valenciennes, France, where he died in 1791. When Byrons great-uncle, the wicked Lord Byron, died on 21 May 1798, described as a woman without judgment or self-command, Catherine either spoiled and indulged her son or vexed him with her capricious stubbornness. Her drinking disgusted him, and he often mocked her for being short and corpulent and she once retaliated and, in a fit of temper, referred to him as a lame brat. Langley-Moore questions the Galt claim that she over-indulged in alcohol, upon the death of Byrons mother-in-law Judith Noel, the Hon
34.
The Band
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The Band was a Canadian roots rock group, originally consisting of four Canadians—Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, and Robbie Robertson —and one American, Levon Helm. The members of the Band first came together as they joined the rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkinss backing group, in 1964, they separated from Hawkins, after which they toured and released a few singles as Levon and the Hawks and the Canadian Squires. The next year, Bob Dylan hired them for his U. S. tour in 1965, because they were always the band to various frontmen, Helm said the name The Band worked well when the group came into its own. The group began performing as the Band in 1968 and went on to ten studio albums. Dylan continued to collaborate with the Band over the course of their career, the original configuration of the Band ended its touring career in 1976 with an elaborate live ballroom performance featuring numerous musical celebrities. This performance was immortalized in Martin Scorseses 1978 documentary The Last Waltz, the Band recommenced touring in 1983 without guitarist Robertson, who had found success with a solo career and as a Hollywood music producer. Following a 1986 show, Manuel committed suicide, Danko died of heart failure in 1999, after which the group broke up for good. Helm was diagnosed with cancer in 1998 and was unable to sing for several years. He continued to perform and released several albums until he died in 2012. The group was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1989, in 2004 Rolling Stone ranked them No.50 on its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time, and in 2008 they received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004, The Weight was ranked 41st on Rolling Stones list of the 500 greatest songs of all time, in 2014, the Band was inducted into Canadas Walk of Fame. While most of the Hawks were eager to join Hawkinss group and he had earned a college degree, planned on a career as a music teacher, and was interested in playing rock music only as a hobby. The Hawks were in awe of his wild, full-bore organ sound, Hudson finally relented, as long as the Hawks each paid him $10 per week to be their instructor, all music theory questions were directed to Hudson. While pocketing a little cash, Hudson was also able to mollify his familys fears that his education had gone to waste. The piano–organ combination was uncommon in rock music, and for all his aggressive playing, there is a view that jazz is evil because it comes from evil people, but actually the greatest priests on 52nd Street, and on the streets of New York City were the musicians. They were doing the greatest healing work, and they knew how to punch through music which would cure and make people feel good. With Hawkins, they recorded a few singles in this period, Hawkins regularly convened all-night rehearsals following long club shows, with the result that the young musicians quickly developed great technical prowess on their instruments. In late 1963, the split from Hawkins over personal differences
35.
Reggae
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Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A1968 single by Toots and the Maytals Do the Reggay was the first popular song to use the word reggae, effectively naming the genre, Reggae usually relates news, social gossip, and political comment. Reggae spread into a commercialized jazz field, being known first as ‘Rudie Blues’, then ‘Ska’, later ‘Blue Beat’ and it is instantly recognizable from the counterpoint between the bass and drum downbeat, and the offbeat rhythm section. The immediate origins of reggae were in ska and rock steady, from the latter, stylistically, reggae incorporates some of the musical elements of rhythm and blues, jazz, mento, calypso, African music, as well as other genres. One of the most easily recognizable elements is offbeat rhythms, staccato chords played by a guitar or piano on the offbeats of the measure, the tempo of reggae is usually slower than ska but faster than rocksteady. The concept of call and response can be found throughout reggae music, the genre of reggae music is led by the drum and bass. The bass guitar often plays the dominant role in reggae, the bass sound in reggae is thick and heavy, and equalized so the upper frequencies are removed and the lower frequencies emphasized. The guitar in reggae usually plays on the off beat of the rhythm and it is common for reggae to be sung in Jamaican Patois, Jamaican English, and Iyaric dialects. Reggae is noted for its tradition of criticism and religion in its lyrics, although many reggae songs discuss lighter, more personal subjects, such as love. Reggae has spread to countries across the world, often incorporating local instruments. Reggae en Español spread from the mainland South America countries of Venezuela, Caribbean music in the United Kingdom, including reggae, has been popular since the late 1960s, and has evolved into several subgenres and fusions. Many reggae artists began their careers in the UK, and there have been a number of European artists and bands drawing their inspiration directly from Jamaica, Reggae in Africa was boosted by the visit of Bob Marley to Zimbabwe in 1980. In Jamaica, authentic reggae is one of the biggest sources of income, the 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English lists reggae as a recently estab. Sp. for rege, as in rege-rege, a word that can mean either rags, ragged clothing or a quarrel, a row. Reggae as a term first appeared in print with the 1968 rocksteady hit Do the Reggay by The Maytals which named the genre of Reggae for the world. Reggae historian Steve Barrow credits Clancy Eccles with altering the Jamaican patois word streggae into reggae, however, Toots Hibbert said, Theres a word we used to use in Jamaica called streggae. If a girl is walking and the look at her and say Man, shes streggae it means she dont dress well
36.
Jivan Gasparyan
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Djivan Gasparyan is an Armenian musician and composer. He plays the duduk, a double reed woodwind instrument related to the orchestral oboe, Gasparyan is known as the Master of the duduk. Born in Solak, Armenia to parents from Mush, Gasparyan started to play duduk when he was six, in 1948 he became a soloist of the Armenian Song and Dance Popular Ensemble and the Yerevan Philharmonic Orchestra. He has won four medals at UNESCO worldwide competitions, in 1973 Gasparyan was awarded the honorary title Peoples Artist of Armenia. In 2002, he received the WOMEX Lifetime Achievement Award, a professor at the Yerevan State Musical Conservatory, he has instructed and nurtured many performers to professional levels of performance in duduk. In 1998 he released an album with a unique duduk quartet he formed and he has toured the world several times with a small ensemble playing Armenian folk music. His music has been chosen on the soundtrack of several international films
37.
Radio program
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A radio program or radio show is a segment of content intended for broadcast on radio. It may be a production or part of a periodically recurring series. A single program in a series is called an episode, BBC output was a unifying force within British culture, and has been written about extensively elsewhere. During the post-1964 period, western Europe offshore radio helped to supply the demand for the pop, the BBC launched its own pop music station, BBC Radio 1, in 1967. In South Asia, Radio Ceylon was the oldest radio station in the region, Broadcasting in Ceylon was launched by British engineer, Edward Harper in 1925. Radio Ceylon became a corporation in 1967 and was known as the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation when the island turned into a republic in 1972. Interest in old-time radio has increased in recent years with programs traded and collected on reel-to-reel tapes, cassettes and CDs and Internet downloads, as well as the popularity of podcasts
38.
Radio Rossii
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Radio Rossii is the primary public radio station in Russia. Radio Rossii began broadcasting in December 10,1990, radio Rossii is classified as an information and light entertainment station. It is one of the states channels, meant to appeal to a wide audience with varying tastes. Its included in the first multiplex of digital TV broadcasting DVB-T2, radio Rossii is broadcast throughout Russia, as well as in parts of Europe, on the MW and SW bands. LW broadcasts were terminated on 9 January 2014
39.
New wave music
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New wave is a genre of rock music popular from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s with ties to 1970s punk rock. New wave moved away from smooth blues and rock and roll sounds to create pop music that incorporated electronic and experimental music, mod, initially new wave was similar to punk rock, before becoming a distinct genre. It subsequently engendered subgenres and fusions, including synth-pop, college rock, common characteristics of new wave music include the use of synthesizers and electronic productions, the importance of styling and the arts, as well as diversity. In the mid-1980s, differences between new wave and other genres began to blur. New wave has enjoyed resurgences since the 1990s, after a rising nostalgia for several new wave-influenced artists, subsequently, the genre influenced other genres. During the 2000s, a number of acts explored new wave and post-punk influences, such as the Strokes, Interpol, Franz Ferdinand and these acts were sometimes labeled new wave of new wave. The catch-all nature of new music has been a source of much confusion. The 1985 discography Whos New Wave in Music listed artists in over 130 separate categories, the New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock calls the term virtually meaningless, while AllMusic mentions stylistic diversity. New wave first emerged as a genre in the early 1970s, used by critics including Nick Kent and Dave Marsh to classify such New York-based groups as the Velvet Underground. It gained currency beginning in 1976 when it appeared in UK punk fanzines such as Sniffin Glue and newsagent music weeklies such as Melody Maker and New Musical Express. In November 1976 Caroline Coon used Malcolm McLarens term new wave to designate music by bands not exactly punk, the term was also used in that sense by music journalist Charles Shaar Murray in his comments about the Boomtown Rats. For a period of time in 1976 and 1977, the new wave. By the end of 1977, new wave had replaced punk as the definition for new music in the UK. As radio consultants in the United States had advised their clients that punk rock was a fad, like the filmmakers of the French new wave movement, its new artists were anti-corporate and experimental. At first, most U. S. writers exclusively used the new wave for British punk acts. Music historian Vernon Joynson claimed that new wave emerged in the UK in late 1976, in the U. S. the first new wavers were the not-so-punk acts associated with the New York club CBGB. CBGB owner Hilly Kristal, referring to the first show of the band Television at his club in March 1974, said, furthermore, many artists who would have originally been classified as punk were also termed new wave. A1977 Phonogram Records compilation album of the same name features US artists including the Dead Boys, Ramones, Talking Heads, New wave is much more closely tied to punk and came and went more quickly in the United Kingdom than in the United States
40.
Alternative rock
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Alternative rock is a genre of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s and 2000s. In this instance, the word refers to the genres distinction from mainstream rock music. The terms original meaning was broader, referring to a generation of musicians unified by their debt to either the musical style or simply the independent. Ethos of punk rock, which in the late 1970s laid the groundwork for alternative music, Alternative rock is a broad umbrella term consisting of music that differs greatly in terms of its sound, its social context, and its regional roots. Most of these subgenres had achieved minor mainstream notice and a few bands representing them, such as Hüsker Dü, with the breakthrough of Nirvana and the popularity of the grunge and Britpop movements in the 1990s, alternative rock entered the musical mainstream and many alternative bands became successful. By the end of the decade, alternative rocks mainstream prominence declined due to a number of events that caused grunge and Britpop to fade, emo attracted attention in the larger alternative rock world, and the term was applied to a variety of artists, including multi-platinum acts. Post-punk revival artists such as Modest Mouse and The Killers had commercial success in the early, before the term alternative rock came into common usage around 1990, the sort of music to which it refers was known by a variety of terms. In 1979, Terry Tolkin used the term Alternative Music to describe the groups he was writing about, in 1979 Dallas radio station KZEW had a late night new wave show entitled Rock and Roll Alternative. College rock was used in the United States to describe the music during the 1980s due to its links to the radio circuit. In the United Kingdom, dozens of small do it yourself record labels emerged as a result of the punk subculture, according to the founder of one of these labels, Cherry Red, NME and Sounds magazines published charts based on small record stores called Alternative Charts. The first national chart based on distribution called the Indie Chart was published in January 1980, at the time, the term indie was used literally to describe independently distributed records. By 1985, indie had come to mean a particular genre, or group of subgenres, at first the term referred to intentionally non–mainstream rock acts that were not influenced by heavy metal ballads, rarefied new wave and high-energy dance anthems. The use of alternative gained further exposure due to the success of Lollapalooza, for which festival founder, in the late 1990s, the definition again became more specific. Defining music as alternative is often difficult because of two conflicting applications of the word, the name alternative rock essentially serves as an umbrella term for underground music that has emerged in the wake of punk rock since the mid-1980s. Alternative bands during the 1980s generally played in clubs, recorded for indie labels. Sounds range from the gloomy soundscapes of gothic rock to the guitars of indie pop to the dirty guitars of grunge to the 1960s/1970s revivalism of Britpop. This approach to lyrics developed as a reflection of the social and economic strains in the United States and United Kingdom of the 1980s, by 1984, a majority of groups signed to independent record labels mined from a variety of rock and particularly 1960s rock influences. This represented a break from the futuristic, hyper-rational post-punk years
41.
Punk rock
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Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed in the early to mid-1970s in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in 1960s garage rock and other forms of what is now known as proto-punk music, Punk bands typically produced short or fast-paced songs, with hard-edged melodies and singing styles, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY ethic, many bands self-produce recordings and distribute them through informal channels, the term punk was first used in relation to rock music by some American critics in the early 1970s, to describe garage bands and their devotees. The following year saw punk rock spreading around the world, for the most part, punk took root in local scenes that tended to reject association with the mainstream. An associated punk subculture emerged, expressing youthful rebellion and characterized by distinctive styles of clothing and adornment, by the beginning of the 1980s, faster, more aggressive styles such as hardcore and street punk had become the predominant mode of punk rock. Musicians identifying with or inspired by punk also pursued a range of other variations, giving rise to post-punk. At the end of the 20th century, punk rock had been adopted by the mainstream, as pop punk and punk bands such as Green Day. The first wave of rock was aggressively modern, distancing itself from the bombast. According to Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone, In its initial form, unfortunately, what happens is that people who could not hold a candle to the likes of Hendrix started noodling away. Soon you had endless solos that went nowhere, by 1973, I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock n roll. In critic Robert Christgaus description, It was also a subculture that rejected the political idealism. Technical accessibility and a DIY spirit are prized in punk rock, in the early days of punk rock, this ethic stood in marked contrast to what those in the scene regarded as the ostentatious musical effects and technological demands of many mainstream rock bands. Musical virtuosity was often looked on with suspicion, according to Holmstrom, punk rock was rock and roll by people who didnt have very many skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music. In December 1976, the English fanzine Sideburns published an illustration of three chords, captioned This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. The title of a 1980 single by the New York punk band Stimulators, inscribed a catchphrase for punks basic musical approach. The previous year, when the rock revolution began in Great Britain, was to be both a musical and a cultural Year Zero. As a Clash associate describes singer Joe Strummers outlook, Punk rock is meant to be our freedom, were meant to be able to do what we want to do. Scholar Daniel S. Traber argues that attaining authenticity in the identity can be difficult, as the punk scene matured, he observes
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World music
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The term was popularized in the 1980s as a marketing category for non-Western traditional music. Globalization has facilitated the expansion of world musics audiences and scope and it has grown to include hybrid subgenres such as world fusion, global fusion, ethnic fusion, and worldbeat. To enhance the process of learning, he invited more than a dozen visiting performers from Africa and Asia, the term became current in the 1980s as a marketing/classificatory device in the media and the music industry. There are several conflicting definitions for world music, one is that it consists of all the music in the world, though such a broad definition renders the term virtually meaningless. The term also is taken as a classification of music that combines Western popular music styles with one of many genres of music that are also described as folk music or ethnic music. However, world music is not exclusively traditional folk music and it may include cutting edge pop music styles as well. Succinctly, it can be described as music from out there. It is a nebulous term with an increasing number of genres that fall under the umbrella of world music to capture musical trends of combined ethnic style and texture. As a result, definitions of the genre have become particularly varied, similar terminology between distinctly different sub-categories under primary music genres, such as world, rock and pop can be as ambiguous and confusing to industry moguls as it is to consumers. In a report on the 2014 globalFEST National Public Radios Anastasia Tsioulcas said Even within the music community. Whats more, I believe that in peoples imaginations, world music means a kind of fairly awful, gloppy, hippy-ish. Its a problematic, horrible term that satisfies absolutely no one, the Breton musician Alan Stivell pioneered the connection between traditional folk music, modern rock music and world music with his 1972 album Renaissance of the Celtic Harp. At this time, Stivells contemporary, Welsh singer-songwriter Meic Stevens popularised Welsh folk music, more recently, other Welsh-language bands such as Calan and 9 Bach have achieved international acclaim. The broad category of music includes isolated forms of ethnic music from diverse geographical regions. These dissimilar strains of music are commonly categorized together by virtue of their indigenous roots. World fusion / Worldbeat / Ethnic fusion / Global fusion can also blend specific indigenous sounds with more blatant elements of Western pop. Depending on style and context, world music can sometimes share the music genre. Good examples are Tibetan bowls, Tuvan throat singing, Gregorian chant or Native American flute music, World music blended with new-age music is a sound, loosely classified as the hybrid genre, ethnic fusion
