FLOWERS
Flowers / Tsvety - rock band, established guitarist and songwriter Stas Namin in 1969.
As a copyright project, «Flowers» never had a permanent staff. In the nearly 40-year history of the group played more than 50 musicians. After «Flowers», many subsequently formed their own ensembles, became well-known composers and performers.
Stas Namin Group «Flowers» - the beginning of pop and rock music in the mass culture that has become a legend for generations worldwide.
The entire catalogue of songs of Flowers are placed in iTunes (CLICK HERE FOR LINK).
History
1960-1970's
The rock group "Flowers" was created in Moscow in 1969 by Stas Namin. The name was inspired by the legendary Woodstock hippie rock festival. Its first participants, besides Stas himself, were Vladimir Chugreev, Vladimir Solovyov and vocalist Elena Kovalevskaya.
In the 1974, many musicians also took part in Stas Namin's first tour, including Vladimir Sakharov (Valmiki Muni Das). They perform in joint concerts, working on the stage for more than 60 concerts a month. The name "Soviet Beatles" was assigned to them.
However, in 1975 the band dissolved by a decree of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR, and its name was banned. It was only in 1977 that the band was resurrected under the new name "The Stas Namin Group", and in 1978 it went on tour, still being banned by all central mass media outlets.
After 1978, a few members emigrated abroad, Valmiki Das included.
1980's
Since 1980, the group "Flowers" begins to appear sporadically in the media, releases the first author's album "Hymn to the Sun" and manages to record two more custom albums. They travelled to the West for the first time and in four years started a world tour, almost without working in the USSR.
By the end of 80-s the Soviet monopolist record label Melodiya sold over sixty million copies of The Flowers records, but neither Stas Namin, nor the band members were paid out of this record sales.
In the 90s, the group stops its activities for 10 years.
1990's
In 1999, "Flowers" celebrated their 30th anniversary with a big concert, which is attended by musicians who previously worked in the group, as well as friends - stars of national rock music. But even after this concert, the group did not return to public life.
"Flowers" started to work in the Moscow Theater of Music and Drama, created by Stas Namin, participating in the creation of the musical "Hair", the rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar" and other performances. Being a kind of author's project of Namin, "Flowers" in the 1970s and 80s did not have a permanent composition, and all songs were recorded and performed by different soloists.
2000's
The group "Flowers" had a permanent line-up only in 2000, and, according to Namin, this was the strongest line-up in the entire history of the group.
In 2009, in the year of its 40th anniversary, in fact, after a 30-year hiatus, "Flowers" decided to once again intensify their creative public life. In the summer of 2009, the band recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London all their famous hits created between 1969 and 1982. The double album "Back to the USSR" becomes a kind of result of the first period of their work.
2010's
Following the anniversary show of 6 March 2010 a DVD was released titled "The Flowers", it was the first time that the band hit the stage after more than a twenty-year break and started touring on a regular basis again.
Also in 2010, the group played their anniversary concert "Flowers-40" (in the Crocus City Hall) and released a CD. The concert summed up the band's forty years of work, presenting all famous songs "Flowers" in the standard performance, as fans used to listen to them on the records in the 1970s. It also featured musicians from the band's early lineups, friends and guests.
In 2012 the band delivered a great show at Crocus City Hall where, in addition to well-known hits and prohibited songs of the 1980s presented a modern, completely new repertoire. The show was released on two albums – Homo Sapiens and Flower Power.
For more than 35 years, various musicians and soloists have played and recorded songs in a group with Stas Namin, and at the same time, the "handwriting" and the individuality of the group's melodic lyrical style have remained unchanged.
Throughout its history, "Flowers" appeared on TV a few times, and the phenomenon of their popularity is that it arose and was supported only thanks to concerts and recordings. During the existence of the Stas Namin Group, more than 50 million records of the group were sold. "Flowers" was the first rock band to come out of the "underground" and met with the reality of the Artistic Council and the official Soviet censorship.
"Flowers" became, as it were, the forerunner of Russian rock in popular culture countries. Several generations have been brought up on their music, many modern stars of rock and pop music have studied on it. "Tsvety" is one of the few Russian rock bands born in the late 1960s that still exists today. Their songs are still remembered and loved by millions of people, and Namin's song "We wish you happiness" has become truly popular.
The entire catalogue of songs of Flowers are placed in iTunes (CLICK HERE FOR LINK).
References:
https://brendoptom.ru/en/cvety-gruppa-cvety-gruppa-stasa-namina-samye-izvestnye.html
