Vladimir Visotsky · Владимир Высоцкий – Self-Portrait · Автопортрєт (1980) (16/44 Vinyl Rip)

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Vladimir Visotsky · Владимир Высоцкий – Self-Portrait · Автопортрєт (1980) (16/44 Vinyl Rip)

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Liner notes:
The present record contains the last performances by Vladimir Visotsky during his visit to Sofia. The spontaneity, the binding text between the songs and the whole atmosphere of the recording give us the chance to experience the pleasure of the direct contact with the poet, the actor, the musician and the person Vladimir Visotsky.

From his biography on Wikipedia:
Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky (January 25, 1938 – July 25, 1980) was an iconic Russian singer, songwriter, poet, and actor whose career has had an immense and enduring effect on Russian culture. Though his work was largely ignored by the official Soviet cultural establishment, he achieved remarkable fame during his lifetime, and to this day exerts significant influence on many of Russia's popular musicians and actors who wish to emulate his iconic status.
His songs – over 600 of them – were written about almost any imaginable theme. The earliest were Outlaw songs. These songs were based either on the life of the common people in Moscow (criminal life, prostitution, and extreme drinking) or on life in the Gulags. Vysotsky slowly grew out of this phase and started singing more serious, though often satirical, songs. Many of these songs were about war. These war songs were not written to glorify war, but rather to expose the listener to the emotions of those in extreme, life threatening situations.
Nearly all of Vysotsky's songs are in the first person, although he is almost never the narrator. When singing his criminal songs, he would adopt the accent and intonation of a Moscow thief, and when singing war songs, he would sing from the point of view of a soldier. This created some confusion about Vysotsky's background, especially during the early years when information could not be passed around very easily. Using his acting talent, the poet performed his role play so well that until told otherwise, many of his fans believed that he was, indeed, a criminal or war veteran. Vysotsky's father said that "War participants thought the author of the songs to be one of them, as if he had participated in the war together with them." The same could be said about mountain climbers; on multiple occasions, Vysotsky was sent pictures of mountain climbers' graves with quotes from his lyrics etched on the tombstones.
Not being officially recognized as a poet and singer, Vysotsky performed wherever and whenever he could - in the theater (where he worked), at universities, in private apartments, village clubs, and in the open air. It was not unusual for him to give several concerts in one day. He used to sleep little, using the night hours to write. In his final years, he managed to perform outside the USSR and held concerts in Paris, Toronto, and New York City.
With few exceptions, he wasn't allowed to publish his recordings with "Melodiya", which held a monopoly on the Soviet music industry. His songs were passed on through amateur, fairly low quality recordings on vinyl discs and magnetic tape, resulting in his immense popularity. Cosmonauts even took his music on cassette into orbit. – His writings were all published posthumously except for one poem printed in 1975.
Every year on Vysotsky's birthday, festivals are held throughout Russia and in many communities throughout the world, especially in Europe. Vysotsky's impact in Russia is often compared to that of Bob Dylan in America.
Vysotsky's body was laid out at the Taganka Theatre, where the funeral service was held. Thousands of Moscow citizens left the stadiums (as it was the time of the Olympics) to attend the funeral. Although no official figure was released, it was later estimated that over one million people attended Vysotsky's funeral, almost as many as that of Pope John Paul II in 2005. The Soviet authorities, taken aback by the unexpected impact on the masses of the death of an underground singer, ordered troops into Moscow to prevent possible riots.