One of the pioneers of a new direction in music - the Russian chanson - Mikhail Gulko, is known for many of his hits. His songs, which have already become classics of the genre, still sound on the radio and in many restaurants in the country.
early years
Mikhail was born in Ukraine, in the city of Kharkov on July 23, 1931. My father worked as an accountant, and my mother was an actress. She also sang and played the piano. In the biography of Mikhail Gulko, nationality never mattered, as he later wrote - the fifth column can always be changed. Thanks to my mother’s creative activity, music constantly sounded in the house. Misha’s childhood passed to the music of Konstantin Sokolsky and Yuri Morfessi from gramophone records.
He began to study music early, he sang in amateur performances to the accompaniment of his mother. Then he learned to play the accordion and already performed with solo numbers at school holidays. The first musical award in the biography of Mikhail Gulko appeared in the second grade. He won first place in the school art competition . He considered the received diploma his whole life to be one of his most valuable awards.
They spent wartime in evacuation in the Urals. He still remembers the song that the legless sailor sang near the market, past which he went to school. But at concerts he does not sing it - tears stifle. In high school, Gulko sang a lot and played at school evenings and dances, but did not intend to play music professionally.
Singing engineer
Despite the opinion of his parents, who believed that he had a good musical future, Gulko chose the profession of engineer. After graduation, he entered the Mining Department at the Moscow Polytechnic Institute. In his student years, after classes, he sang a lot at various pop venues, college dances, sometimes giving private concerts.
In order to ensure expensive life in the capital, Mikhail often performed with his compatriot from Kharkov Lyudmila Gurchenko. She then sat without roles and also took up any opportunity to earn. They wound up with concerts in Moscow and Moscow Region, until they published an article condemning unearned incomes about the heroine of Carnival Night.
Mikhail Gulko’s career began in his hometown, he got a job at the Yuzhgiproshakht Design Institute. After work, he still played a lot and sang at weddings and city celebrations.
Music on the edge of the earth
In the early 60s, the Kamchatka period began in the biography of Mikhail Gulko. He was invited to work as the head of the ensemble in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. For about four years they performed at the oceanfront restaurant "Ocean". The musical group often went on business trips, for performances in front of sailors directly on the ships. In this distant land, Mikhail managed to realize his cherished dream - to get a professional musical education. He graduated from a music school.
In Kamchatka, as described in the biography of Mikhail Gulko, significant meetings took place. He met the famous bard Yuri Kukin, who presented him with his two songs “Behind the Fog” and “Hotel”. He managed to get to know Vadim Kozin, the disgraced musical idol of the 30s.
Michael also worked with Mikhail Shufutinsky. During this period, the legend of his prison past was born. He gave concerts in places of detention many times, and he always did it for free. Here his musical style finally developed - an urban romance.
In 1969, Mikhail moved to the capital of the country, where his musical ensemble played in the most expensive restaurants in Moscow. One of the last places where he worked before leaving for America was the ensemble of the restaurant "In the Hermitage Garden" in the Karetny Ryad.
America
In 1979, in the biography of Mikhail Gulko, there was again a sharp turn, he emigrated to the United States. Now he sang in American restaurants. Soon the first album "Blue Sky of Russia" was released with his most famous songs "Lieutenant Golitsyn", "White Birch", "Echelon". In 1984, he recorded the second disc, Burned Bridges, with hits from Lord Officers and Cigarette Butts.
In honor of the fortieth anniversary of the victory in 1985, he released the album "Songs of the War Years", and a little later, "Overseas" was released, where several songs were created together with Mikhail Tanich. Gulko toured a lot in the wake of Russian emigration - from Australia and Germany to Israel. In 1992, Gulko's tour was a great success in Moscow, where he arrived at the personal invitation of the mayor of the capital, Yuri Luzhkov.
In 2005, the book "The Fate of the Emigrant" was published with a biography of Mikhail Gulko from a photo of different periods in the Dekom publishing house. In 2014-2015 in two parts the album "Unsung songs" was released in digital format.
Personal life
In the biography of Mikhail Gulko, personal life has always been closely intertwined with the creative. Spouse Tatyana is its director, they got married in 2000. She is from Siberia, she is a Russian language teacher by education. As Gulko himself says, she’s everything for him: a muse, a mother, a wife, and a sister.
Before that, he was married twice. From his first wife, he has a daughter who is already an adult and also lives in New York. They met their second wife in Moscow, and emigrated with her to America, where they soon divorced.