Alexander Gradsky

Alexander Borisovich Gradsky (Алекса́ндр Бори́сович Гра́дский; born Alexander Borisovich Fradkin, 3 November 1949 – 28 November 2021) was a Russian rock singer, bard, multi-instrumentalist and composer.

He was one of the earliest performers of rock music in Russia.

His diverse repertoire included rock 'n' roll, traditional folk songs performed with a rock twist, and operatic arias.

He composed two rock operas and numerous songs including soundtrack music for several films.

Alexander Gradsky was born on 3 November 1949 in the Russian city of Kopeysk, into a family of mixed Jewish and Russian origin.

His father Boris Fradkin was an engineer working in a factory, and his mother Tamara was an actress.

His mother encouraged him to learn to play the violin as a child, and her brother, Boris Gradsky, Alexander Gradsky's uncle, was a dancer who toured abroad with the famous Moiseev dance group and brought home records of Western music artists including Elvis Presley, Louis Armstrong and Little Richard.

Such music was not ordinarily available in Soviet Russia at that time.

By the age of 12, Gradsky was singing Elvis Presley songs and accompanying himself on guitar.

In the mid-1960s, Gradsky joined the band Slaviane (Славяне – The Slavs) as lead singer.

The band's repertoire consisted almost entirely of Beatles and Rolling Stones covers.

In 1963, at the age of 13, he sang with a Polish student band called Tarakany (Тараканы – The Cockroaches) in a concert at the International Club of Moscow State University.

This is believed to have been the first public performance of rock 'n' roll by any Russian musician.

In 1966–1967, he was working with three bands: Slaviane, Los Panchos and Skify (Скифы – The Scythians).

However, he found himself disagreeing with his Slaviane bandmates over the direction the band should take.

Gradsky wanted to perform original rock songs in his native Russian language, whereas the other band members did not think that such endeavours could be successful and wanted to continue performing imported songs.

Gradsky consequently decided to form his own band, Skomorokhi (Скоморохи – The Jesters or The Buffoons) in 1967.

His band became popular playing original Russian songs, as Gradsky blended elements of Western rock music with the lyric-centred, folk-influenced Russian bard music which was popular around that time.

He enrolled in Gnesins Academy of Music in 1969, and continued to perform with Skomorokhi while a student.

A successful performance at the Soviet pop-rock festival Silver Strings was followed with airplay and record deals.

In 1971, David Tukhmanov invited Gradsky to record some vocal parts for his debut LP Kak prekrasen mir (Как прекрасен мир – How Beautiful is the World).

Gradsky performed two songs, one of which, "Zhil-byl Ya" (Жил-был я – Once upon a time I was), got critical acclaim.

In 1973, film director Andrei Konchalovsky asked Alexander Gradsky to compose and perform music for the film "A Lover's Romance", which was released in 1974, the same year in which Gradsky graduated with a master's degree in vocal performance.

Gradsky performed all the male vocal parts in the film soundtrack, which brought him fame as a solo artist.

His many records released during his long career encompass a variety of genres.

His first rock opera, Stadion (Стадион – Stadium), dedicated to the memory of Víctor Jara, was released as a double LP in 1985.

His collaboration with John Denver, with whom he performed the 1986 song Let us Begin..., brought him to wider international attention.

In 1987, he became a member of Union of Russian Composers.

He also composed a rock ballet Chelovek (Человек – The Man), released in 1988.

Gradsky was a tenor who is reported to have a three-and-a-half octave vocal range, and also played 12 instruments.

He performed the demanding role of the Astrologer in Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Golden Cockerel (Золотой Петушок – Zolotoy Petushok) in Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre in 1988.

In the 80s, Gradsky returned to the writing a poetry and creating social-themed songs.

He formed a concert program in the "singer-songwriter" style.

He participated in the organization of a number of Soviet rock festivals such as Rock-panorama.

He also worked as a host of "Alexander Gradsky's hit-parade" show on radio "Yunost" showing near 107 artists from different genres (artits like Alexander Bashlachev, Yuri Shevchuk, Victor Tsoy, Konstantin Kinchev, Dmitriy Malikov, Vladimir Presnyakov Jr.. got their first radio broadcast).

Gradsky took part in a charity concert for the liquidators of Chernobyl disaster.

Since the late '80s, Gradsky taught vocals at the Gnesin Music Academy and performed there.

On 16 July 1988 Gradsky performed at the San Francisco, California Golden Gate Park Bandshell as part of the American Soviet Peace Walk Concert.

Later that evening he also played acoustic guitar and sang during the intermission (set break) at the Grateful Dead Rex Foundation Charity concert at U.C. Berkeley's Greek Theater.

In 1990, he got a contract with Victor Entertainment and released two albums containing songs in Russian and English as well as Japanese romances.