The return of groups that have not performed for many years, but are important to many, on the stage in the world of popular music is a common phenomenon. Other times, excited fans celebrate a reunion after just a few years, and other times it takes decades for it to happen, when no one really hopes for it anymore. The biggest event of its kind in the world in recent years is the daily shows of the most famous Swedish quartet ABBA Travel In London (the legendary artists themselves can be seen in the form of avatars), while in Latvia this summer, an ambitious series of concerts with an instrumental and song program is presented by the group Star sign – composer and keyboard player Jānis Lūsēns, guitarist Aivars Gudrais and soloists Zigfrīds Muktupāvels and Maija Lūsēnas, who have not actively performed concerts for many years, perform together on stage again.
Much less is known about Maija Lūsēna’s musical career than about her domestic troubles – it is, of course, a tasty morsel for the yellow press that one of the most popular and extravagant Latvian singers, who was educated as an actress at the Latvian State Conservatory, has been suing for years for her lost place of residence in Riga. Probably used to journalists being primarily interested in such questions rather than music, Maija initially avoids the conversation, but finally, shortly before Zodiac the beginning of the tour, I still go to visit the singer in Jurmala, where she lives now.
Children must be employed
On the way to the coast of Lielupe, where the singer saw an abandoned lookout tower that she would like to buy and restore, our conversation will take place, I hear her talking to herself in Russian – later Maia explains that it is the leader’s prayer that needs to be recited every time you start driving again if you have been standing for more than ten minutes. Maija also writes her own ballads, which she likes to talk about. The first one, being an Orthodox, was written in Russian, and then the producer Edijs Gniedovskis suggested that it should be in Latvian. Having found the poetry of Ernest East as suitable for his songs, the author sought him out himself. It turns out that at that time he also got into difficulties in his life – he lost his business and his family. Many songs have already been created, the accompaniment of which was recorded by his son Jānis Lūsēns junior, who is now in a band Star sign bass guitarist.
May’s song At night can be found YouTube in the channel, but he has rarely performed his ballads in public so far. However, Maija teaches young singers at the training center supported by the Jūrmala City Council and emphasizes that these lessons are available to children free of charge. Maija herself remembers her childhood as saturated with various free extracurricular activities: basketball, dancing, singing in an ensemble. According to her, the employment of children is very important so that such violence does not happen among children as recently in Imanta, Riga. She doesn’t like this city very much, so she also avoids driving to rehearsals as much as possible.
Back inside the maze
“Just now that we’re getting ready Zodiac concerts, with the help of Jānis I understand that Zodiac music and all its association, which reached its apogee at the festival Liepaja amber In 1987, there was something that could not be broken, destroyed or destroyed by the dissolution of our marriage. It feels like that time – twenty-six years – has been cut off and thrown in the trash, as if we had never parted. Everything is clear to everyone! Jānis has colossally arranged the vocal parts sung by three backing vocalists. After these attempts, he has led me back into that labyrinth from which I was away, convinced that I would never sing all that again and that no one wants to hear or see me there, and I only sang my ballads. Siegfried also came up with that stupid name “farewell tour” – as if after that he immediately goes into a coffin and goes to the grave…” says Maia with a laugh and admits that it wasn’t the music that was to blame, but all the other things that came with it. – bohemian, from which you wanted to run away, because neither the body could hold it, nor was it interesting that the house was full of guests all the time, who had to be put to bed, fed and cleaned.
Maija, then from Renskumberg, met her future husband Jānis Lūsēnas in the 1970s in a band led by Valdas Alviķas in Liepāja, in which Jānis Šipkēvics played rhythm guitar. At that time, even as far as Maija remembers, they did not play their own music and Imants Kalniņš played the role of the god of the repertoire. They have gone to Riga to participate in a television competition When here? Later, Maija was a backing vocalist in the Latvian Philharmonic group Tip Top, with which she toured the entire Soviet Union, where thousands of people of different nationalities listened to songs in Latvian, however unbelievable it may seem to us today. Adrians Kukuvas and Haralds Sīmanis performed as soloists in the first part of the concert, whose daughter, who was always taken with her, was looked after by Maija during the entire trip, while the adults hung out, and in the second – Ojārs Grinbergs and Margarita Vilcāne. Maia remembers that she earned only seven rubles for each concert, even though the stadiums were full.
Maybe tomorrow
At the beginning of the 80s, when Juris Kulakovs created thunder, also for Jānis Lūsēns (both played music together before that In the arch) in parallel with the instrumental studio group Zodiacwhose albums were sold in the USSR in huge copies of millions, for which he himself said that only pennies bounced, was also a group Panoptics, in order to be able to perform at the events of the Academy of Arts, architect Edgars Treimanis sang in it, while Maia, dressed in an extravagant gold-colored dress with frills, only needed to shout loudly, because it was great rock. Later, after Siegfried Muktupável’s victory in the competition Jurmala ’88 already Zodiac as a bright and artistic soloist, she toured the entire Soviet Union on long concert tours together with Laima Vaikuli. “We still received kopecks for the concerts – the rest was collected by the functionaries. Today, with such an audience, I shouldn’t be asking municipalities for a place to live – we would all be millionaires,” Maija says.
The singer, however, admits that trips throughout the great Soviet Union were a good alternative to concerts in the West, where no one expected groups from here, if the compatriots did not help, as Zodiac exiled Latvian groups Acacia members who organized concerts for the group in the USA. Gat Gaujenieks from Acacia had the opportunity to go to the studio at night and record in America Zodiac songs that were released on CD in 1991 Clouds, which has now become a rarity. Maija remembers that there was a court in that studio where she went to play basketball. She is well used to this, as well as dances for events, and was once the captain of the conservatory team.
Together with three other Latvian pop music divas Ieva Akurateri, Olga Rajecka and Edīta Baušķenieci, Maija also created a quartet Ladies popwhose biggest hit Maybe tomorrow is a song by Gata Gaujenieks, arranged in Latvia by Ingus Baušķenieks and Juris Riekstiņš. The recently closed Riga pub Leningrad the wall was decorated for many years with a black and white poster of Ladies Pop from the magazine Flame – one of the rare erotic images seen in the Latvian press of that time, in which Maija covers her breasts only with her hands. Group Ladies pop is still performing, but Maija no longer participates in it: “I believe that for a group to make sense of its existence, it should compose new songs and not only perform the old ones.”
Everyone has their own time
“The comeback will probably be long, hard and long. Everyone has their own time. Until now I had other interests – academic music, working with theaters. This will be a big event for all of us, because I have never been in any other rock music group, only this one the core group we still play with in musicals,” par Zodiac tour after a thirty-year break was announced by Jānis Lūsēns on Radio this spring NOPE in a program dedicated to the record Clouds.
Before the beginning of the concert series, Maija emphasizes that never before with Zodiac have not worked together on the interpretations of the songs she performed: “I always figured out everything myself, how to sing those songs, and Jānis didn’t interfere. Now he asks me if I don’t need to take something lower, because my voice settles over the years. There was a time when I I sang all my ballads every day – it was like brushing my teeth. I write ballads so they’re easy and I can fly, but the thing with Lucien’s vocal parts is that at the time I was singing with a chest resonator, but when it all ended, when I came to Orthodoxy, I sang in the church choir for many years, and there I learned to sing more with a head resonator. If you sing with a chest resonator, it turns out that you have to sing the upper notes with pressure. Now it is not easy to return to the chest resonator. Jānis says: “Get a vocal teacher” but I don’t need one. I know what I need. Now I can’t wait to have the equipment brought to me so I can sing every day Zodiac program. I don’t want to praise myself, but people tell me: nobody can sing like me.”
STAR SIGN
Concerts in Latvian cities until September 16. Tickets Ticket paradises in the network EUR 15–50
2023-06-11 08:25:01
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