Nowadays, regularly held contests "Chanson of the Year" have become familiar. Both the public and the critics are accustomed to this term. And no one recalls yard songs or, as they were also called, thieves. Who wrote the lyrics, and who the musical accompaniment, the story is mostly silent. However, only one person remained, one performer, whose name has survived to this day. Arkady Severny. His voice, his manner of expression and movement remained in spite of strict censorship.
Self-taught guitarist
Songs by the fire sound in a special way. And on the bench of the city garden, a frustrated guitar in the dark of night sounds like a classically organ. To such songs and plain melodies, several generations of Soviet people grew up and matured. At first, the biography of Arkady Severny developed according to the standard established by traditions. Arkasha was born in March 1939. In the family of Dmitry Zvezdin, who worked on the railway in the city of Ivanovo, he became the fifth child. They lived like everyone else, not rich, but also not in poverty.
It was difficult to go to war when my father volunteered for the front. When the dogs of the fascist pack were defeated, the head of the family returned home in 1946, and the older Arkady went to first grade. Military hard times did not pass without a trace. The boy grew frail and sickly. At school, he did not stand out from his classmates. The situation qualitatively changed at the moment when the guitar fell into his hands. Arkady quickly mastered the technique of playing a seven-stringed instrument using three main chords.
The sister gave the budding artist a notebook with handwritten texts of popular and little-known "thieves" songs. Arkady knew well how the punks lived on the street and why these people did not like the official pop song. He almost never parted with a guitar. I did not think about the career of an amateur artist, but with gusto I composed my own texts and remembered others. After graduating from school, the young man went to Leningrad, to the city, which was considered the capital of the Russian provinces. He decided to get higher education at the Forestry Engineering Academy.
