The pioneers of business and culture do not seek to make the world more ener, but they end up doing so out of country ingenuity and determinism. While we see globalization as factories and containers, the exchange of goods and concepts between countries begins with a user disinteffing anything. that other people in some other country would appreciate. Joanna Stingray was the user who brought Soviet rock music to the United States and did so remarkably.
In a new book, Red Wave: An American in the Soviet Music Underground, Joanna Stingray and her daughter Madison Stingray tell the story of the export of rock music to the United States and the importation of basic American values into the Soviet Union. stories, this one started with a young user for anything to do.
Joanna Fields, who later replaced her call to Joanna Stingray, embarked on a rock career in Los Angeles, had an agent and a recording contract, produced a video and even synchronized her song at Studio 54 in New York, but after graduating from college, her music career stopped and was dull.
In 1984, Joanna called her sister, who was reading in England, and discovered that she could enroll in her sister’s scholar organization to make a stopover in the Soviet Union. She called a friend whose sister was married to a Soviet emigrant. He told Joanna to find a friend of his in Leningrad, an underground musician named Boris Grebenshchikov. This advent would replace Joanna’s life.
To put Joanna Stingray’s story in perspective, he believes that if a stranger came to America before rock’n’roll was invented or popular, he befriended Jim Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Van Halen and brought his music into the world.
In 1984, in Leningrad, Joanna called Boris Grebenshchikov, who fortunately spoke English very well. Surprisingly, from what she achieved later, Joanna did not speak Russian at the time. He met Boris, the lead singer of the band Aquarium, and learned the ins and outs of Soviet rock music.
In the mid-1980s, in the Soviet Union, there were two types of rock music: official and clandestine. Official bands gave concerts and sold government-approved albums in stores. His songs had moved away from anything that might annoy government bureaucrats. Joanna discovered that there was also a parallel world of underground Soviet rock, flourishing in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), full of talented musicians who ran in makeshift clubs (one was simply called Rock Club) and distributed music to enthusiasts through cassettes. .
Victor Tsoi was the lead singer of the band Kino. Joanna has become a close friend of Tsoi, who died in a tragic car turn of fate in Latvia in 1990. Some of his songs can be interpreted as a reference to the war in Afghanistan. a war that sent many young Soviets back into box bags. His song “Changes” has become popular in the era of Gorbachev’s reform, with lyrics that included: “Our hearts call for change, our eyes call for change. . . We are waiting for changes The song remains an uprising anthem to this day. In 2020, it was banned by the Belarusian government after protesters chanted marches opposed to President Alexander Lukashenko. In Minsk, the government arrested two DJs who played the song in what is now called “Place of Change”.
Joanna sought to help those talented musicians. He became involved in a kind of cape and dagger operations, smuggling musical gadgets and tools for his friends from Soviet rock, and freeing his friends. music and videos he made of his performances.
Joanna didn’t go unnoticed. This was not the time for an American to engage in unrthodox activities in the Soviet Union. She is one of the few people whose movements have sounded the alarm between FBI agents and the KGB, and has been questioned through both. Everything was pending the award, bringing Soviet rock music to American audiences.
In June 1986, the double album Red Wave reached American record outlets and radio stations. He presented 4 Leningrad underground rock bands: Aquarium, Kino, Strange Games and Alisa. It has become a phenomenon and gave the impression in Good Morning America. and other programs.
The reaction within the Soviet Union has demonstrated how globalization can generate greater freedom. German magazine Der Spiegel told the story of Red Wave before the album’s release with a photo and a caption that read: “An American woman smuggles into Russian rock’n’roll underground. “Newsweek temporarily followed him.
In August 1986, a few months before the Reagan-Gorbachev Reykjavik summit, Joanna was back in Leningrad and felt that the effect of the red wave was total. “There was nothing more rewarding than knowing how much those rock enthusiasts wanted as a percentage of their beloved stars with the Western world,” Joanna writes. “There was a sense of Russian pride around Red Wave, and within a few weeks the album was sold on the Russian black market for $200. “
Years later, Joanna learned that the effect on Red Wave has reached the Kremlin. A member of the government music firm showed the album to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. “How come those bands come out in the United States and not here?”Gorbachev would have said.
The Soviet administration’s reaction to the album approached comedy, but in a way that benefited underground rock bands, their enthusiasts and freedom of expression. “It has been documented that in the months following the release of Red Wave in the West, the Soviet government began to struggle to give the impression that the bands were ‘official’ teams so as not to be embarrassed as the government cracked down on those accepted music teams,” Joanna writes. They chose Boris [Grebenshchikov] to be the favorite of the glasnost . . . and presented him and his Aquarium organization with the possibility of playing (uncensored) . . . the city’s largest concert hall. Aquarium, Zoopark, Kino and other Rock Club bands began playing on the radio and eventually on television, Aquarium and its chamber orchestra earning the honor of being the first rock band to perform at the prestigious Oktyabrsky Hall.
There is much more to Joanna’s story, adding that she is a rock star in the Soviet Union. He wrote “Steel Wheels” with Boris Grebenshchikov and “Danger” with Viktor Tsoi, and played in concerts.
The irony of her story is that this wonderful pioneer who brought Soviet and American culture closer in combination, the daughter of the guy who produced an anti-communist documentary in the 1960s narrated through Ronald Reagan. Another twist: after the launch of Red Wave, the Reagan Guyagement asked her to be some kind of cultural ambassador between the two countries.
The greatest testimony of Joanna’s feat comes from one of the musicians she helped. “Joanna Stingray’s appearance in St. Petersburg in the early 1980s must have been God’s response to our subconscious prayers,” Boris Grebenshchikov said. “His naive courage”. , interest and generosity created a kind of lifeguard for us rockers: he brought the things we needed to play our music and released not only our recordings, but also the very message of our existence. Without her and her Red Wave, she would have taken aquarium for many years to obtain official records of Melodiya and for Kino to start traveling in Europe. This fearless woman broke the seat that seemed hopelessly unbreakable. He threw a lifeguard into our waters and replaced everything. It doesn’t matter how many times we thank him. , is never enough. ‘
I am the Executive Director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan public policy organization that focuses on commerce, immigration, and other issues.
I am the executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan public policy studies organization focused on trade, immigration and similar issues founded in Arlington, Virginia. From August 2001 to January 2003, I was Executive Assistant Commissioner of Policy and Planner and advisor to the Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Before that, I spent four and a half years at the Capitol at the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, first for Senator Spencer Abraham and then as chief of staff for Senator Sam Brownback. I’ve published articles in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and other publications. I’m the author of a nonfiction e-book called Immigration.