Group Zoo Biography

The founder of the group and its permanent leader is Mikhail Naumenko, the stage pseudonym is Mike Naumenko. Also, in addition to T-shirt, a permanent participant in the “zoo” throughout the history of the group was the leader-guitarist Alexander Khrabonov, the rest of the musicians either left forever, or someone left and returned. In different years, many tribut-albums recorded by many famous musicians and groups were released for the songs of the group.

After the death of the musician, many unknown records of the group, including concerts, were extracted from the archives. All these archives are embodied in new albums, which are still produced by mass circles. He was a famous Soviet rock musician, founder and leader of the zoo rock band. It is considered the first Soviet musician who combined in their work the root English-American rock traction with texts in the genre of household realism.

Mike Naumenko is most famous as the author of such “iconic” songs as “sweet n”, “suburban blues”, “rubbish” and some others. The future Soviet rocker was born on April 18 in the family of Leningrad intellectuals. His father Vasily Grigoryevich, gg. In childhood, he did not engage in music and was not even interested in her, but the hobby for this art began when Mike first heard the music of the British group "The Beatles".

Mike Naumenko began to write songs at school after his grandmother gave him a guitar. He composed the first songs in English - the guy studied in a special school and owned this language well. There he received the nickname "Mike". Former wife Mike, Natalya, claims that the school teacher of English first called him for the first time. The first texts in Russian were written in the year under the influence of Boris Grebenshchikov, who even then became the famous musician in Leningrad.

In addition to music, Mikhail was fond of the manufacture of aircraft models and translations from English of various texts. After leaving the institute, he worked as a sound engineer at the Bolshoi Puppet Theater, then a watchman. All this time he remained a musician. In the second half of the x, Mike played in the group "Union of Lovers of Music Rock", in GG. In the year, Mike, together with the leader of the Aquarium, Boris Grebenshchikov recorded the acoustic album "All the brothers - sisters." For a long time, Mike played in many little-known Leningrad groups with a bass player, played under the joke name “The Wocal-Installed Group Berry” with a repertoire of classic rock and rolls.

He also performed a lot of solo and only in the year he finally organized his own Zoo group. Up to a year, the team was an amateur team, after which the musicians went on tariffing at the Len Concert. Natalia lived with his only wife for 10 years. From this marriage there is a son Eugene. At the end of Mike, health problems appeared, which aggravated household turmoil and alcohol abuse.

He was left by his wife. Motorika’s left hand deteriorated sharply, which led to difficulties in the game on the guitar. The musician died on August 27 from hemorrhage to the brain as a result of an accident in his apartment. The drummer of the Zoo group Valery Kirilov expressed a different point of view: according to him, Mike Naumenko really died of hemorrhage in the brain, but it did not occur for natural reasons, but due to a fracture of the base of the skull as a result of a cruel blow inflicted by the T-shirt during the robbery in the courtyard, as evidenced by the loss of personal belongings of the musician.

There are also the testimony of one teenager who allegedly saw how someone lifted Mike in the yard from the ground. After the attack, Mike did not die in place, but managed to climb his home, but there he finally weakened and lay in unconsciousness for a long time, not noticed in a communal apartment. When it was finally discovered by loved ones and called an ambulance, it was already too late.

However, many people who are familiar with the circumstances of the death of Mike do not confirm this hypothesis. The son of Mike Eugene is married, raises two daughters, works on television. Adheres to the same version of the death of his father as Valery Kirilov. The first musical groups, whose work attracted his attention, were The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, in addition, he collected Western articles about T.

Rex ”,“ The Doors ”, David Bowie and translated them from the English language. Little is known about the "prezoparkovsky" work of the wrapping rock star: even at school he composed songs in English, but did not manage to realize them. In the period gg.

In the summer of the year, Mike makes a tour of the villages of the Vologda Oblast as part of the Overhaul group. In the middle of the year, Mike Naumenko, together with Boris Grebenshchikov, records the acoustic album "All Sisters Brothers." The recording was made on the Mayak tape recorder, the musicians chose the banner of the Neva, and the instruments had only an acoustic guitar and a province of accordion.

The quality of the record was very different from the studio, but many of the songs recorded then became subsequently hits.Of the 32 recorded songs, the album included only the album quickly dispersed around Moscow, and Naumenko began to be called the Leningrad Bob Dylan. The formation of Mike’s musical face was facilitated by personal rapprochement with the Leningrad artist Tatyana Apraksina, which is reflected in a number of songs, including “Sweet N”, “If there is rain”, “Blues of your river”, “Morning together” and some other works of lyrical themes.

In the anthology of “Sovetic Sovetsky Rock Magnets”, Alexander Kushnir notes: “In one of his later interviews, Mike gave out a very secret and, perhaps, the most important thing:“ All my songs are dedicated to her ... ”. The next step in the creative path of the musician was the organization of the Zoo group, in which he was a permanent soloist and leader until the end of his days.

Since Mikhail Naumenko did not possess outstanding vocal data, he performed his songs with recitative. Mike gained popularity thanks to ironic and satirical song texts. Most Mike songs are sung in the first person. But, according to the author, this did not mean at all that he was just like a character on behalf of which a song was sung. REX ”Sometimes Mike also preserved the original melody - for example, you can compare“ golden lions ”or“ call me early in the morning ”and, accordingly, the Dylanov“ Idiot Wind ”and“ Meet Me in the Morning ”, or“ I Love Bugi -Wugs ”and“ I Love to Boogie ”.

In a specific Soviet space, the question of plagiarism did not arise, and the “receptivity” Mike rather looked like a way of mastering someone else's musical and poetic tradition on Russian soil. Many songs written by Naumenko were performed by other artists.