Leps Gregory has long been a landmark for Russian show business: not a single ceremony of presenting music awards, not a single hit parade can do without him. Such a success, a native of Sochi walked a very long time. What difficulties did the singer face in life and who played a decisive role in his career?
Grigory Leps: biography, youth
Gregory was born in 1962 in Sochi. “Leps Grigory” is a creative pseudonym: according to the passport, the singer is Grigory Lepsveridze.
He grew up in an ordinary Soviet family: his mother worked at a bakery, his father worked at a meat factory. The boy did not show interest in studying, but he had a passion for music and football. Therefore, Gregory did not think for a long time where to enter, and at the age of 14 he went to a music school and graduated from it in the class of percussion.
Then there was the army. And having served the due time, Lepsveridze began to earn extra money on dance floors. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Gregory went to restaurants and taverns, where he began to earn decent money. True, he spent all his earnings on entertainment, in particular, the singer turned out to be a gambler and lost large sums in casinos and slot machines.
The Sochi restaurant, where Leps worked, was often visited by billionaires Iskander Makhmudov and Andrey Bokarev. These individuals subsequently played an important role in the career of the singer.
The beginning of a pop career
Leps Gregory moved to Moscow when he was already 30 years old. The singer says that he did not even think of making a high-profile career, he just wanted to change the restaurant surroundings for a different setting. In addition, Gregory had already made some connections: for example, he met Oleg Gazmanov, Alexander Rosenbaum, Mikhail Shufutinsky and many other artists in the same Sochi restaurant.
Despite the fact that eminent friends promised help, Grigory Lepsveridze remained “out of work”. Disappointed in everything, Leps began to drink a lot and take drugs.
However, somehow he nevertheless released in 1995 an album entitled "God bless you." The song from this album "Natalie" became a hit. Grigory Leps was even invited to the "Song of the Year", but shortly before the concert, the singer had pancreatic necrosis. After Leps was between life and death, he forever said goodbye to alcohol.
In 1997, the musician released another album - "A Whole Life".
Grigory Leps: photo, first successes in show business
In the 2000s Leps’s affairs began to improve: he released a new album, “Thank you, people”, the title track of which was the song “Rat Jealousy”. Leps Gregory acquired his own website and began to actively tour. In the same year, the singer lost his voice and was forced to undergo surgery on ligaments.
But by 2001, he recovered and returned to the stage with the album “On the Strings of Rain”, which earned Lepsveridze a big name. The hit "A glass of vodka on the table" was known to every second Russian. Also known were the songs "Angel of Tomorrow" and "Tango of Broken Hearts." It was then that Grigory Leps for the first time became the most sought-after Russian singer and to this day holds these positions.
In 2004, Leps released a collection of songs by Vysotsky, published under the title "Sail". And then the artist began to move smoothly from chanson to new genres.
All-Russian Glory
Grigory Leps, whose biography is a difficult life and career, released his sixth album in 2006, and the singer’s tours went far beyond Russia.
And although Leps is undoubtedly a talented singer and composer, he made a stunning career not only due to his hard work and creative abilities. $ 8 million was invested in the promotion of the singer by his friends billionaires - Makhmudov and Bokarev. Only after such serious money injections did expensive clips and concerts in the Kremlin become possible.
The investments of billionaires and Leps’s talent have led to the fact that today Grigory Lepsveridze earns $ 12 million a year, has a lot of music awards and is even a winner of the 2014 World Music Awards. Grigory Leps also has his own production center. At different times he collaborated with almost all famous performers and composers in the former CIS: Irina Allegrova, Diana Gurtskaya, Viktor Drobysh, Ani Lorak, Konstantin Arsenyev and many others.
Family and Children
In his entire life, Leps was married only twice. The first wife of Gregory Leps studied with him at a music school. Her name was Svetlana Dubinskaya. The woman gave birth to the singer's daughter Ingu, but the marriage still quickly broke up.
Grigory Leps met his second wife in Moscow, being already a famous singer. They met at a nightclub at a party. With the second lover, the dancer Anna, the singer has been married for 15 years, and they have three children: two daughters - Eva and Nicole, as well as son Ivan. According to Leps, the secret of their long-playing and happy marriage with Anna is that she always and in every way supported him.
Thus, Grigory Leps is a large father and an exemplary family man. Who knows, maybe soon another heir to his multi-million state will be born?