Vladimir Vysotsky
 "I'd like to say a few words about these songs of mine. Many years ago, I was with my closest friends. From my various travels I have brought back for them... well, impressions, impressions in verse set to a sort of rhythm. So I took my guitar in hand and began to strum away. And what emerged was something like a song. But it was not a song. It was, the way I see it, poetry recited with musical accompaniment. In short, poetry set to rhythm. I remember the atmosphere then. It was the atmosphere of trust and unconstrained freedom, and, what's more important, friendship."
V. Vysotsky
Vladimir Vysotsky's Biography
Vysotsky, Vladimir Semyonovich. (b. Jan. 25, 1938, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.--d. July 24, 1980, Moscow), Russian actor, lyricist, and folksinger whose social and political satire spoke of the ironies and hardships of a strictly regulated Soviet society. While risking official displeasure, he became an immensely popular figure who was revered by the Russian people even after his death.
Vysotsky's parents were divorced soon after his birth, and he lived mostly with his mother (a technical translator), first in Buzuluk and then, from 1945, in Moscow. He attended the Institute of Civil Engineering for a year (1955-56) but quit to join the Nemirovich-Danchenko Studio School of the Moscow Art Theatre, graduating in 1960 and then becoming a professional actor, first at the Moscow Pushkin Dramatic Theatre and then at the Theatre of Miniatures (i.e., "Playlets"). From 1964 he was a member of the Moscow Theatre of Drama and Comedy on the Taganka, starring in such roles as Hamlet and Don Juan; he was also featured in 26 motion pictures.
His great popularity as an actor was perhaps even exceeded by his popularity as a poet and songwriter; he wrote several hundred songs and poems, as well as incidental music for plays and films. Soviet officialdom permitted few of his songs to be sung on television or in films or to be recorded. His lyrical fame spread from appearances in clubs, factories, and universities and through the mass distribution of homemade (and illegal) tape recordings (magnitizdat) and publications (samizdat). He sang of such themes as Soviet prison life ("Only the final judgment could be worse"), Soviet official hypocrisy ("I grieve that honour has been put to rout, that backbiting has been deified"), and generally about ordinary Russian daily life (crowded living quarters, long food lines, unfair privileges of the elite). He died at 42 of a heart attack, brought on, it was said, by his well-known carousing, hard-drinking life-style. In the late 1980s the Soviet government began allowing the publication of his poetry and song lyrics.
Britannica Online
Until his death, Vladimir Vysotsky was a prophet without honor in his own country; although he wrote more than a thousand highly popular songs, he died without an official record release to his name. The reason for this studied neglect lay in the political tenor of his material. Vysotsky, who began performing in the 1960s, was quite critical of the Communist regime, and his lyrics took position on the Soviet status quo. His songs derived from the blatny pesny (literally, delinquent song) tradition, with its celebration of sex, drink, and street fights. Informally distributed cassettes ensured Vysotsky a wide and enthusiastic following. After his death, in 1980, Gorbachev granted his music an imprimatur and a 20-album retrospective was released.
- Leon Jackson, All-Music Guide
..."He embodied all that is Russian. He was Russia," said Vasily Ovchinnikov, a 43-year-old market seller clutching his guitar at the cemetery after a rendition of one of Vysotksy's songs.
..."He saw life as it really was. What he sang and wrote about still has meaning for us now," said Kortashev, a poet, after reciting some of Vysotsky's verse near his hero's grave.
- Reuters report about the 60th anniversary
of Vladimir Vysotsky (1938-1980)
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