How the most famous song "Maple" appeared and became a legend of the Soviet variety of the 70s
The Soviet variety is full of sensational hits, masterfully performed by beloved vocal and instrumental ensembles. How many years have passed, and the lines of favorite Soviet songs are still on the minds of many compatriots. But the words "And love, like a dream, has passed away" became incredibly popular; some critics even say they symbolized an era! And the very song "Maple" sung by VIA "Blue Bird" It's impossible to forget or throw out of your heart after listening to it just once...
It's no secret how popular this song is, and people have heard it many times on the radio. However, people might not even have guessed that the song "Maple" could just get lost among the obscure songs or not be released at all! Who sang it and how did this song manage to become a popular favorite hit? Let's take it one step at a time...
Who "gave birth" to the romantic lines?
In fact, the authorship of "Maple" does not belong to Blue Bird at all. But one should not underestimate the enormous contribution to the history of composition of this wonderful group of musicians! Nevertheless, the author of the original lyrics to the song was the songwriter who wrote them even 15 years before the publication of The Maple. His name was Leonty Shishko. In a poetry collection called "Rowan Autumn" he published a poem dedicated to love that had passed away. The original version had four more lines.
Why are you following me again like a shadow?
Without you, sometimes it wasn't even a day.
If you could have known how I waited for you!
Yes tired of waiting, and the love is gone.
The most interesting thing is that the meaning of the narration in the poem was conceived in a woman's person! Shishko decided that the words would be a good lyric for a song, and four years after writing them, he sat down and created the melody himself. The singer Lyudmila Zykina decided to perform it. At that time her performance did not have any common features with the future hit of the 70s...
Having performed "Maple" during one of her film concerts, Zykina most likely counted on success. It did not follow. for one reason: the folk singer herself removed it from her own repertoire and never performed it again. Maybe some of the Soviet elite didn't like the song, or maybe Zykina herself didn't like the touching love lines or Leontiy Shishko's music for them.
A Second Life for the Maple
Anyway, nobody remembered this song until the mid-1970s. And it wouldn't have been remembered if it weren't for the Bluebird guys, who could not reconcile with the fact that such a wonderful poem is passing into oblivion on the Soviet musical stage. Thanks to them, listeners today are not deprived of the opportunity to recall their favorite words with nostalgia and tender awe:
My heart is very sorry for what happened,
Autumn drives a flock of cranes into the distance.
To the four winds I will give away sorrow and grief,
This summer will not come back to us again.
In 1971, the lines of a future hit appealed to To Yuri Akulovwho at the time was a member of the vocal and instrumental ensemble "Kalinka.". From 1955 he worked at Moskontsert and gained fame as a fairly successful songwriter. He even managed to work with such pop giants as Maya Kristalinskaya, Nina Brodskaya, and Alla Pugacheva. And it is to him that fans should give credit for the revival of the song "Where the Maple Shuts".
However, at that time he had no idea that he was reincarnating a future all-Union hit. He just liked the song, and from time to time at "Kalinka" performances he came out with his guitar and delighted the audience with a rendition of "Maple", which was not in the main repertoire of the ensemble. Today it would be called a bonus track. This is in spite of the fact that its members themselves undertook to record a song about love gone. At that time it didn't "shoot" either, but the recording itself, as performed by Alexandra Smorchkova and Ludmila Chizhevskaya remained.
Rising from the ashes
But even then, the song was on the verge of being forgotten somewhere on the shelves. A real second life was given to it by the musicians of the VIA "Blue Bird"! They toured together with "Kalinka" in one city, where by chance We heard Akulov playing "Maple" on his guitar backstage. Leonid Yakovlevich came up to Yuri and asked for the sheet music for "Maple," just in case.
Already later in the studio, Blue Bird was recording one of her records for a future album in 1975. There was time to no more than five minutesI was in the middle of the day when everyone had finished their work. We didn't want to leave, and someone said: "Let's record this song about maples and love!" Sergey Drozdov was the ensemble's vocalist at the time. He needed only one take to record - No one took the song seriously... And for nothing.because it was with this song that the band became incredibly popular! As the musicians later recalled, the audience simply begged them to play "Maple" again, and then another, and another!
