"Secret" and the twists and turns of fate by Maxim Leonidov: Why did the musician leave for Israel, what he did in the cinema and how he found happiness

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

Music fans perceive the creativity of the singer Maxim Leonidov differently. Some consider him an interesting and talented musician, while others - eccentric and incomprehensible. Indeed, Leonidov's repertoire contains weak and transient songs, but there are also bright, memorable ones, with good lyrics and melody. And Maxim not only sings them, but plays them on stage. By the way, this is the great merit of the creative group "HippoBand", with which the singer has been performing for more than two decades. It all started with "The Secret".

Prior to that, Maxim Leonidov was a member of the Secret beat quartet, which also had many fans at one time. Some of the songs of this group can often be heard today. True, representatives of the younger generation say that it is still better to listen to the old recordings of the "Secret" group than to watch. They were really overplaying on stage.

Not an author, but a performer

Sometimes you can hear that Maxim Leonidov began his solo career after he left the Secret group. From that moment on, his work began to gain momentum - sometimes faster, sometimes slower. First, the artist performed in Israel, then returned to Russia. This is not entirely correct information. Maxim Leonidov's solo songs came out in the "secret" period, only then they had another author.

Recently, the State Television and Radio Fund provided the audience with an old recording of the program "Welcome" with the participation of Maxim Leonidov. Let's face it, there was little pleasure in watching it. That only there is a song with a strange name "Catch crocodiles with bloodworms." It would seem that both the words are decent, and the music is more or less normal. Most importantly, the songwriters are famous - Vladimir Shainsky and Mikhail Tanich. But in general, the song turned out, let's put it mildly, not entirely clear. And it’s not even that she’s a child. All the more strange it sounds when performed by Maxim Leonidov. Not far from the "crocodile" and the song "Lena", which was also not written by Leonidov. Also about nothing, a work from the category: listen and forget. Better yet, don't listen at all.

"Secret": the beginning

The Secret group was created in 1983. Its founder was Maxim Leonidov, who had just returned from the ranks of the army. Within two years, the quartet became popular and very quickly gained a whole army of fans.

Two albums, released by the Secret quartet, were sold out in a matter of days. At the peak of fame, he lasted five years. Then he broke up, and all its members, including Maxim Leonidov, took up a solo career.

The singer then went with his family to Israel and tried to continue his creative career there, performing songs from the quartet's repertoire. However, the "secret" songs did not receive such popularity as in Russia, in Tel Aviv. Returning to Russia, Leonidov formed a new group called "HippoBand" and, already in its composition, regained its former popularity. In 1999, the HippoBand album "Don't Let Him Go" was released, the song of the same name from which for a very long time held the first positions of the music charts.

The songs are good and not so

Few people liked the songs of Maxim Leonidov, written by other people, which cannot be said about those lyric ones that he wrote himself. Remember "Alice" performed by the "Secret" group? Well, can you really compare her with "Lena"? By the way, many people still listen to "Alice" with pleasure, while the second one has long been safely forgotten.

It is interesting to know: did Leonidov really like all this primitive, or did he sing these "songs about nothing" in order to get on Central Television? The fact is that at first the performances of the "Secret" group were shown only on Leningrad television in the "Discs are spinning" program. And only after a while Maxim Leonidov was invited to take part in the filming of the musical programs "Morning Mail" and "Musical Ring". Maybe “Lena with a crocodile” really helped? On another recording of the “Welcome” program, Maxim Leonidov appears in the company of Elena Stepanova. They sing the song "Hello and Goodbye" in a duet. Also not a masterpiece, but at least not as sad as everything that happened before. True, the musician is not particularly worried about the quality of the performance, because he does not even try to get into the phonogram. One gets the impression that the singer himself does not understand what he is doing on this stage.

In 1986, Leonidov added another musical program called “Wider Circle” to Leonidov’s track record. The singer sang a duet again, but this time he appeared on stage with Nadezhda Kusakina with the song "Welcome", the authors of which were Derbenev, Dyukin and Dobrynin. The audience liked this work, and Leonidov finally got rid of the role of the performer of silly songs. By the way, the "Secret" group also took part in the same program. This is probably why Maxim Leonidov would wear the same costume as the rest of the group members.

Film career

In the same 1986, Maxim Leonidov, together with the "Secret" beat quartet, saw the audience in the musical film "How to Become a Star" still not bad, the solo performance again shocked many: “put on your panties in the morning, do not forget about the watch.” No comment … By the way, the lyrics to this song were written by none other than the famous poet Andrei Voznesensky. Later they said that this song should was to become a parody. In general, we planned one thing, but it turned out completely different. Honestly, it turned out nonsense.

The musical film "How to Become a Star" is not the only one in the filmography of Maxim Leonidov. Later there were such works as "No need to be sad", "Bindyuzhnik and the King", "Jack Vosmerkin - American". In the last film, the actor did not appear on the screen, he sang offscreen instead of Vosmerkin. All this was in the eighties of the last century.

Leonidov's solo album was released in 1987. The singer called it "Confession." The album included only four songs by composer Yakov Dubravin, who, as it turned out later, wrote them specifically for Leonidov. Not everyone understood this voluntary and generous gesture of Dubravin, especially since he had not previously collaborated with the soloist of "Secret". Apparently, the composer had the idea to bask in the glory of a group that was already quite popular at that time and, of course, try to make money on it.

Dubravin thought that when performed by the soloist of the famous beat quartet, his songs would also become popular. The calculation failed. These songs by Dubravin did not become popular, which cannot be said about the author's works of Maxim Leonidov of that period. As you can see, Leonidov often gave solo concerts, being part of a group. Nevertheless, the singer's full-fledged creative career can only be called after leaving The Secret.

A little about personal

The personal life of Maxim Leonidov was as diverse as his creative career. The first wife of the singer was the actress Irina Selezneva. The couple lived together for many years and together they emigrated to Israel after the collapse of the Secret.

The second time Leonidov married actress Anna Banshchikova. This union was not durable, the couple broke up after a few years. The third and last wife of the singer and musician is also actress Alexandra Kamchatova, whom Leonidov married a year after his divorce from Banshchikova. Alexandra is seventeen years younger than Maxim, but this did not prevent her from giving birth to her husband two wonderful babies - daughter Mashenka and son Leonid.

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