Jaak Joala's fading star: Why did the "Estonian nightingale" leave the stage at 38, avoid the audience and hate the song "Lavender"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

On June 26, the famous Estonian pop singer, one of the most popular artists of the 1970s-1980s in the USSR, would have turned 71 years old. Jaaku Yoale, but he has been dead for 7 years. His departure went unnoticed by the general public, because for more than 25 years nothing had been heard about him. Jaak Joala stopped performing on stage at the age of 38 and later did not appear on screens, diligently avoided meeting with journalists, and even stopped communicating with friends. It was rumored that Jaak became a hermit, settling in the hinterland, although he continued to live in the center of the capital of Estonia. The singer categorically refused to remember the past, and he despised Lavanda, performed in a duet with Rotaru …

From childhood, Jaak Joala's life was associated with music - his mother was a musicologist and worked at the State Philharmonic of the Estonian SSR. Jaak studied at a music school, where he learned to play the piano and flute, and later entered the music school. At the entrance exams, the teachers asked if he was sure of his choice, because in Tallinn he was known as a gambling race car driver. Nevertheless, music has always remained in the foreground for him. However, Jaak did not graduate from music school - from his youth he was a fan of The Beatles, was fond of rock music, and was expelled for refusing to stop performing rock compositions. This discrepancy between what he loved and what he was forced to do played a fatal role in his life.

The most famous Estonian singer in the USSR

After serving in the army, Jaak Joala acted as a bass player and soloist for various Estonian groups, participated in music competitions and festivals, where he repeatedly won awards, but all-Union popularity came to him in 1975, when the singer received a special jury prize at an international competition songs in Sopot. Then he even had a chance to make a career in Europe: producer Joe Napoli from London drew attention to Jaak, who brought English singer Barry Ryan to the festival. He was the host of the TV show "Supersonic", where both world stars of the first magnitude and aspiring vocalists performed. Napoli invited the Estonian singer to go with him to London, but for Joala this was tantamount to emigration from the USSR, and he refused this offer.

The best Soviet composers worked with him: David Tukhmanov, Alexander Zatsepin, Raymond Pauls. In the late 1970s. - early 1980s. his finest hour came - after Jaak Joala sang songs in the film "June 31" and sang in a duet with Sofia Rotaru in "Blue Fire" the song "Lavender". He became a frequent guest on TV programs of the central television of the USSR and on the radio, his records were sold in millions of copies, and the songs "I paint you", "Photos of loved ones", "Love chooses us" were sung by the whole country.

Even his colleagues, who were equally popular, were admirers of his talent. Muslim Magomayev wrote about him in "Soviet Culture": "".

Misunderstanding at home and the hated "Lavender"

Although lyric rather than patriotic songs prevailed in the singer's repertoire, Estonia was jealous of his all-Union popularity, condemned for singing songs in Russian and contemptuously called the "Kremlin nightingale" and "Yashka Yolkin", while in the Soviet press he was called "Estonian nightingale". Jaak Joala said: "".

At the same time, Yoala himself was never delighted with his repertoire and later said that he sang not at all what he wanted. The song, which for many years was called his calling card, he could not stand at all and years later confessed: "". The singer was surprised that of all his songs the listeners remembered this one, because he performed it only once on the Blue Light, but on Soviet television this recording was very often repeated, and millions of Jaak Yoala were associated with Lavender ".

Retirement and mysterious disappearance

In 1988, at the peak of popularity, the singer, unexpectedly for everyone, decided to leave the Soviet stage, and in the mid-1990s. practically stopped giving concerts. He himself later explained his decision as follows: "". At the same time, he did not stop studying music - he taught at the Tallinn School, produced young performers, and organized concerts.

After completing his vocal career, he only appeared on stage once, in 2007, during a joint tour of Estonia with Tõnis Mägi, who was not only his colleague, but also a friend. However, in the last years of his life, Jaak stopped communicating not only with journalists, but even with friends. Tõnis Mägi said that for several years he could not get through to him, although they used to call him every day.

The sudden disappearance of the singer gave rise to many rumors: they said that he drank himself, left for the USA, lost his voice, etc. In the last years of his life, it was often written that Jaak Yoala had become a hermit and lived in the rural outback in the forest. He really had a country house in which he spent a lot of time with his family, but at the same time, the artist did not leave the capital of Estonia and lived there in the very center. But after years, he was simply no longer recognized on the streets, because in an older and gaining weight passer-by in simple casual clothes, it was difficult to recognize a brilliant elegant artist with the manners of a foreign star.

Back in 2005, the artist suffered a heart attack, a year later another, then he had a stroke, in 2011 he was hospitalized in connection with the third heart attack. He did not want anyone but loved ones to know about his problems, and therefore stopped appearing in public. Before that, he had not participated in social events and led a closed lifestyle, so this fact did not surprise anyone - they attributed it to isolation and strangeness of character. On September 25, 2014, he passed away. The general public did not immediately become aware of this, because the press wrote about his departure very sparingly and restrainedly.

No matter how the singer himself felt about his work of the Soviet period, he was remembered by millions thanks to precisely these songs, albeit simple and naive, but very light and lyrical. Just like his colleague from Estonia, a famous singer in the USSR, who had to change the profile of her activities: A ban on touring, marriage to a tyrant and other secrets to Anne Veski.