Vysotskii & old ballads (cont.)

[Prof Steven P Hill]

PS to colleagues:

I, a non-musicologist, get the impression that our friend Vysotskii composed his own songs in the 
1960s and 1970s, some of which were VARIATIONS on old gypsy and other popular ballads from 
bygone decades.  (Undoubtedly well-known to students of Russian popular music.)

An old U.S. musical comedy film, "His Butler's Sister" (1943), has its star vocalist Miss Deanna Durbin 
belting out Russian songs at a festive occasion in a "Russian cafe" (Hollywoood style), including what 
I now realize is the old standard "Two Guitars" -- which dates back a few decades before Vysotskii 
began his singing career. The refrain from "Dve gitary," sung by Miss Durbin (in Russian, no less), is 
indeed "Eshche raz, eshche mnogo-mnogo raz."

It seems that Vysotskii creatively borrowed bits and pieces from past ballads and made them his 
own, as in "Variatsii na tsyganskie temy."  -- Steven P Hill, Univ. of Ilinois.

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