"Affectionate May": a musical phenomenon of boarding school boys

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

The era of perestroika and the raising of the "iron curtain" opened new horizons for the inhabitants of the Soviet Union and led to the emergence of new musical trends and groups. Among them, the group gained incredible popularity "Tender May" … For 10 years of its existence, every fifth inhabitant of the country has visited her concerts, and the fans went crazy over the performers, bombarding them with letters and taking their own lives.

December 6, 1986 is called the date of formation of the "Laskoviy May" group. Then in the Orenburg boarding school No. 2 the head of the music circle Sergey Kuznetsov and 13 year old Yura Shatunov preparing a musical program for the New Year's holiday. A year later, Shatunov's voice was recorded in one of the local houses of culture, and then superimposed on the backing track. Sergei Kuznetsov gave the cassette to one of the local kiosks at the railway station. A few weeks later, in the vastness of the immense Soviet Union, the voice of Yura Shatunov was heard from everywhere.

The group has already gone beyond the musical concerts of the boarding school and began performing on local stages. The director of the educational institution in every possible way obstructed the activities of "Tender May", believing that the fallen popularity had a detrimental effect on the fragile psyche of the young singer. And Sergei Kuznetsov was fired from the boarding school.

It was during that period (summer 1988) that Andrey Razin, who worked at the Moscow recording studio "Record". He persuades Kuznetsov to move to Moscow for further activities, promising to transport Yura Shatunov there. When Sergei Kuznetsov is in the capital, he discovers that Razin is producing a group called "Tender May", whose members perform to a phonogram with Yura's voice. Seeing Razin's inaction regarding Shatunov's move to Moscow, Kuznetsov himself (without permission from the boarding school) 9 September 1988 brings the boy to the capital. To avoid a scandal, Razin officially transfers Shatunov to a Moscow boarding school.

Serious work is underway on professional equipment. The album "White Roses" is being re-recorded in the studio, and endless tours begin. The group is joined by other boys from the boarding schools. In January 1989 on the central TV channel in the program "Morning Mail" show the clip "White Roses", and gradually in relation to the group "Laskoviy May" begins a mass hysteria on the part of fans.

Wanting to get the maximum income from the group's activities, Andrei Razin literally "clones" it, and several collectives travel around the Union. Sergei Kuznetsov, who disagrees with this state of affairs, leaves "Tender May". When the presence of several groups with the same name becomes too obvious, Andrei Razin manages to get out of the water, since he is considered a relative of Mikhail Gorbachev. The fact is that Razin was lucky to be photographed in childhood with the Gorbachev couple, after which Andrei called himself the nephew of the secretary general.

When the audience came to look at Yuri Shatunov, and completely different people appeared on the stage, the management explained this by the soloist's illness, a breaking voice, a transitional age. I must say that from such a frenzied popularity, the boy really had nervous attacks.

In 1990 and 1991, during the winter holidays, the Olympic Stadium hosted 17 concerts with overcrowded halls. The press wrote diametrically different reviews. In some newspapers "Laskoviy May" was called "the standard of vulgarity", and in others - "a symbol of purity and nobility." Razin himself stimulated scandals around the group, periodically launching "ducks" so that the audience's interest in the performers did not subside. But an unhealthy situation is brewing in the group and, unable to withstand the tension, in 1992 "Tender May" leaves Yuri Shatunov. Conflicts are brewing between Razin and Shatunov, which result in mutual accusations on television.

In 1996, the group unites again, working in support of the presidential campaign of Gennady Zyuganov. After that, Razin is engaged in politics, and Shatunov moves to Germany. In 2002, in the wake of the popularity of disco, Shatunov makes several remakes of the hits of "Tender May" and acts on his own behalf. On October 1, 2009, the film "Tender May" was released, the plot of which is based on the activities of the group in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the biography of Andrei Razin. idols of the 90s.