Lucky tickets for Vyacheslav Dobrynin: “Everything was for love”
Vyacheslav Grigorievich Dobrynin passed away; he was 78 years old. Musically and intellectually, he was an infinitely versatile and deep man, with a complete absence of a touch of cynicism, which has become a quality, if not innate, then often acquired, like the inevitable autumn cold, in the world of the so-called. show business, or before this definition appeared in the early 90s, in the world of Soviet stage.
A clear proof of the absence of the slightest signs of quarrelsomeness can even be considered the fact that the author of songs that were already gaining popularity in the 1970s voluntarily abandoned his maternal surname Antonov, taking the pseudonym Dobrynin, since in the same years another author and performer Yuri Antonov was gaining popularity on the stage. Although, in principle, it was possible to fight over the name back then, Dobrynin’s debut as a composer took place in 1970, in 1971 his songs were recorded by Lev Leshchenko and Alla Pugacheva, and in 1972 the song based on the poems of Leonid Derbenev “Lives on Earth” became widely known Love”, recorded by the then super popular ensemble “Veselye Rebyata”.
A Beatlemaniac in musical tastes and worldview, Vyacheslav Dobrynin not only stood at the origins of Soviet rock music with its semi-underground and amateur rock and beat groups, but he tried in his compositions, even for the “legitimate” VIA, to formulate musical phrases, harmonies and even arrangement moves that resonate with current trends of the time. Although it was both difficult and risky, since everything that could somehow resemble rock was carefully tracked, monitored, stopped and swept away with the broom of vigilant artistic councils. This game of cat and mouse, in this case with the help of notes and claviers, went on with varying degrees of success, but sometimes ended in quiet, but very joyful victories.
The subject of special pride, joy and happiness of Vyacheslav Dobrynin as a person who knew a lot about the “sausage scraps” of modern music was the fact of the presence of his song “Everything I Have” based on the verses of Leonid Derbenev, another cult author of the Soviet stage, in the first song “Musical Parade” (as the “Sound Track” hit parade was still cautiously called at that time), which debuted on the pages of “MK” in 1977. The song was recorded by the ensemble “Gems” and entered the top three, despite the fact that two more compositions author - “Write me a letter” and “Bitter” - graced the premiere list of the best performed by the then popular VIA “Jolly Guys” and “Blue Bird”.
At each of our meetings - be it an interview on the occasion of a new song that tore apart the charts, or another performance as one of the headliners at festivals and ceremonies of the Sound Track - Dobrynin always recalled this fact of his creative biography, recalling - with a dose of irony and at the same time, with pride - with whom and why the hit parades began not only in MK, but in the country in general.
Now it is difficult to assess what was more important in the work of Vyacheslav Dobrynin - his talent as a composer or his performing aspect. Having written an incredible number of hits for many performers and groups of the first echelon (and many got into this first echelon thanks to the performance of the author’s songs), Vyacheslav Grigorievich at some point decided to perform his compositions himself.
“It’s not even a question of creative jealousy or greed - to pinch off, they say, another piece of fame, if the song is already popular,” Vyacheslav Grigorievich shared with ZD in one of his interviews, “It’s just that at some point it seemed to me that the thoughts, feelings and moods that I put into my writings can be best reproduced by me. Therefore, I sing as best I can, excuse me, although initially everything happened completely by accident.”
For Vyacheslav Dobrynin, the title of People's Artist was relevant from his very first songs. In his case, “folk” is not greatness, but something given by fate. And if we are talking about the ability to compose melodies, which, in combination with words, become drinking songs for millions, then the departure of Vyacheslav Grigorievich is the end of an impressive fragment of the history of Soviet and Russian pop music.
In various interviews, Vyacheslav Dobrynin sometimes sneered at the fact that he probably has a computer in his head that composes and remembers melodies and they are retrieved from there as needed. Moreover, this refers to the times when computers could only be in the head, because they materialized in Soviet homes and recording studios much later.
Dobrynin is a vivid example of how a passion for music can noticeably outstrip music education in its classical sense. The young composer had enough skills and knowledge to pour out his Beatlemania, and then begin to compose melodies that perfectly suited the poems, which had feelings and everyday humor, but there was not much room for the vocabulary of Komsomol meetings.
It is quite possible that a graduate of Moscow State University with a diploma in art history pulled out a lucky ticket when, in the early 70s, he began collaborating with Leonid Derbenev, already a famous songwriter at that time. Derbenev had an uncanny instinct for talented youth (he managed to work with several generations of composers and rarely made a mistake in his choice), tenacious melodies flowed from Dobrynin like a fountain. And when the young author noticed that there was no artist on the Soviet stage who would not perform his song, then if he boasted, it was only a little.
The popular composer pulled out his second lucky ticket in the mid-eighties. Dobrynin himself sang the song “Rescuer” instead of Mikhail Boyarsky, who was stuck on the set (the studio was booked, downtime threatened a terrible scandal), the studio artistic council forgave him for lightly grazing (he is the author, not the singer). A simple Soviet video clip that aired turned him into a recognizable artist. In combination with a clip of already promoted hits, Dobrynin quickly became a stadium performer, and “Don’t rub salt on my wound” brought the hit-maker to the rank of super performers.
Any variety career inevitably resembles walking into a casino. The luck factor here is of great importance and Vyacheslav Dobrynin certainly regularly found himself in the right place at the right time. With music everything is a little more complicated, but at the same time simpler.
Those who famously divide Dobrynin’s legacy of more than a thousand songs into “Farewell” and everything else are, of course, right in some ways. If we call “Farewell” a song that truly takes your breath away, then the other pearls of Dobrynin’s catalog mostly belong to what all sorts of smart people call philistine pop. Probably the slight taste of the new wave, which can be felt in some arrangements, means much less for the success of Dobrynin’s songs than the active aroma of chanson.
And the author himself, of course, understood his audience. “I like what the audience likes,” he told reporters. Journalists sometimes giggled, sometimes teased, but did not always understand the simple truth: everything was out of love between Dobrynin and his fans. It will stay that way.
