Mikhail Karasev hails from Belarus. His hometown is Bobruisk. It was in this city that the musician spent most of his life. He became known to the general public as the author of the songs of the most popular group "Bi-2" in Russia and Australia. The founder of this group, and part-time also its vocalist Sasha Uman, is nephew of Mikhail.
"Sunny side"
Although Karasev Mikhail graduated from a chemical school, chemistry did not interest him at all. Crucian has always been and remains a musician. He is a great bass player, amazing songs come out from under his hands, he is an excellent self-taught arranger. He is the leader of the Solar Side group.
Leo Gunin has collaborated with the Karas collective since its foundation. Then, Mikhail Karasev himself was a student at a chemical school. It can even be noted that some moments in the arrangement were taken by Mikhail from Leo.
Michael's character
This man wrote to himself in one of the songs. This refers to the line: "I never went against the rules." It is this expression that perfectly characterizes Misha. True, few people realize that it was precisely this scrupulousness that sometimes sided not only with Karasu himself, but also with those around him.
Moreover, Mikhail Karasev is very dismissive of fees and copyrights. This also sometimes brings some inconvenience to his surroundings.
Dawn of the Sunny Side group
It is worth noting that Karas himself was born in the 53rd year of the last century, so the group itself began to exist somewhere in the early 70's. Sometimes Lev Gunin took an active part in the life of the group. He was either a keyboard player or an arranger, even tried his hand as a vocalist. It was at that moment when the album with the same name “The Sunny Side” was released that Leo was an official member of the collective. He and two other friends made a huge contribution to the work of the group. Their arrangements and manner of songs became the main highlight of the album.
Most of the keyboard parts in the songs of this album were invented by Gunin, Buslovich and Sazhin. But, of course, the biggest contribution to the album was made by Mikhail Karasev. “Bi-2” then adopted this manner of execution, practically not correcting it.
Who ruled the author’s texts?
It is believed that the texts that Mikhail Karasev wrote were ruled by Gunin and Simanovsky. All right. Except that the word "editing" is not entirely appropriate here. Rather, they helped a brilliant author to rethink some of the details. Sometimes Karasev Mikhail Nikolaevich and now asks Gunin to revise his texts.
Ingenious music
Crucian is completely indifferent to the fact that someone uses his songs. It was this that once led to the fact that the communist government became interested in the works of the master and even profited from them. Michael writes music that is unlikely to ever take root in Russia. The group, which currently performs the masterpieces of Karasev, could not fully take root in the vastness of our vast country. It is worth noting that the guys do not have enough external gloss, glamor, or something. But if you do not peer at the clips, but just listen to music, then they claim to be the best.
The fate of the group "Sunny side"
At some point, Mikhail Karasev, a musician with a capital letter, was able to jump above his head. His songs sparkled with a special light, as if he had poured his soul into them. No one was better able to convey to the public songs written by Karasem than the first soloists of the group Alexander Rotan and Olga Petrykina.
Over time, the author “outgrew” the performers, but the best were never found. Karasev tried to resume cooperation with Olga, but these attempts were unsuccessful. Unfortunately, performing songs by a genius author is quite difficult. Nobody could convey the inner world of Mikhail to the public. And this is one of the main tragedies of this outstanding person.
The genre of songs
It was Mikhail Karasev who created his own separate musical genre - synthetic. His music leaves no one indifferent. Poems are generally a masterpiece. So no one ever wrote and never writes. All his songs do not bother for decades, they can be listened to all his life. This is like the works of classics in literature.
Hard times
For any rock musician, the Soviet era was quite difficult. Mikhail had to change patrons and sponsors more than once. He happened to be a protege both from the chemical technical school, and from the Belarusian Tire Plant, and from the City House of Culture. In the end, Karas and his friends settled in the Myshkovichi tavern under the wing of Starovoitov. There they performed for several years.
Nevertheless, universal recognition for Karasu did not go. After all, he was far from money, intrigue and other behind-the-scenes components. Yes, and there was no Moscow registration. In Belarus itself, in this area of ​​cultural development of the population, there was not a single free niche.
The crucian carp acquired a stomach ulcer due to the fact that it ate when and how it was necessary, and nervous tension made itself felt. The result was an operation to remove three quarters of the stomach. This could not but affect the moral condition of Michael. At the end of the 80s, he was already having difficulty restraining a depressed state.
Then there were many years of emigration to Israel. There, at one of the factories, he fell under the workshop machine; they assembled it, one might say, in parts. Most surprisingly, it was not the vaunted Israeli doctors who saved him, but the Russian, European and American specialists who, by a lucky chance, were on the Promised Land with a “mission”.
But the most interesting thing is that it was during this most difficult period that Misha apparently rethought life. He began to write such masterpieces that everything that was written before went into the shadows. These are the masterpieces we are listening to now performed by the Bi-2 band and other rock artists.