Dezider Ursiny, also known as Dežo Ursiny (; 4 October 1947 – 2 May 1995) was a
Slovak rock musician and a television and film screenwriter and director. He is considered one of the most important personalities of Slovak rock music and one of the most talented and unique Slovak popular music composers. He belongs to a wide group of legends of Czechoslovak Big Beat.
[Big Beat being the name used in ]Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
(and some other countries of the ex-eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...
) that originally meant the music genre equivalent to what had become known as Beat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat is a British popular music genre that developed, particularly in and around Liverpool, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The genre melded influences from American rock and roll, rhythm and blues, skiffl ...
in the early 1960s in the western world and later, by the end of the 1960s, was used to indicate practically all underground rock music. It remained in public use for at least one following decade, often referring to rock generally, but is used today to describe all underground rock music of the 1960s and early 1970s. Dežo Ursiny was a member of big beat bands
The Beatmen,
The Soulmen
The Soulmen were a Slovak rock band singing in English, that existed from 1967 to 1968. Together with The Beatmen they were the most important Slovak Big Beat bands.Big Beat being the name used in Czechoslovakia (and some other countries of the ...
in the 1960s and since the mid-1970s, until his death he pursued a solo-career, composing sophisticated artistic and critically highly praised music, which varied slightly from one album to another and is sometimes hard to define, can be described as
jazz rock
Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and keyb ...
, or more widely –
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. In ...
. He composed music to several films, including the popular musical "Neberte nám princeznú" and also shot several documentary movies during his lifetime.
History
Ursiny was born and raised in
Bratislava. He attended electrotechnical high school where he made his first musical contacts. He started playing guitar at the age 11, and in the early 1960s he is known to play in the amateur bands Fontána and Jolana. At the end of 1964 he joined
The Beatmen as a lead guitarist and singer, and the following year they gained nationwide success in Czechoslovakia. The group played
Beatles-like music and wrote critically praised songs, of which 4 were released on two singles. Ursiny, being only 17, wrote their best song, "Let's Make A Summer". However, their success didn't last long and the band didn't manage to build themselves a stable position on the scene and after their breakup they soon disappeared from people's memories. In 1966 the band decided to emigrate to
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
in search for wider success, limited by the unfriendly political regime, but Ursiny refused to leave his homeland. The band, with a replacement for him soon broke up because of disappointment from the lack of success in the west.
In 1967 Ursiny started studying film and television dramaturgy at the Musical Arts College in Bratislava and from mid-1967 to mid-1968 he was a founding member of
The Soulmen
The Soulmen were a Slovak rock band singing in English, that existed from 1967 to 1968. Together with The Beatmen they were the most important Slovak Big Beat bands.Big Beat being the name used in Czechoslovakia (and some other countries of the ...
, the group that was proclaimed the best at the 1st Czechoslovak Beat Festival in Prague in December 1967. They played Cream-like music and released 4 songs on an EP in the early 1968. In late 1968 he founded The New Soulmen who however disbanded soon thereafter, and didn't release any songs. After the 1968
occupation of Czechoslovakia
Occupation commonly refers to:
*Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment
*Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces
*Military occupation, th ...
the situation much worsened for musicians, and it was more difficult to perform and release as freely as before. The
normalization removed English from the band names and song lyrics and the song themes were undergoing very strong censorship.
In 1970 he founds the band Provisorium after meeting his lifelong mate, keyboardist
Jaro Filip. The band existed shortly in two line-ups, and played only two shows during their existence but managed to arrange a recording deal, before they finally broke up. Ursiny and Filip recorded an album with Czech musicians Vladimír Kulhánek (bass) and
Jaroslav Erno Šedivý (drums) from the band Flamengo, whom they first met three days before recording. The album "Dežo Ursiny & Provisorium", with all lyrics in English, was released to a miracle in 1973. It consisted of four songs, with side long track
"Christmas Time". Full of jazzy melodies it is now considered a classic and one of the best Slovak albums ever recorded (as would later be probably every Ursiny's album), but at the time of its release it remained practically unnoticed by the public.
In the same year Ursiny finished his studies and later started working at the Koliba film studios in Bratislava. He escaped military service by fleeing to a psychiatric hospital and in 1974 he met another his lifetime friend, poet Ivan Štrpka, who would remain his almost sole lyricist for the rest of the time. He changes his opinion that only English is the language of rock and all his later recordings will have Slovak lyrics. He considered the lyrics so important that all his albums after his first Slovak one would read "Dežo Ursiny/Ivan Štrpka" as artists on their covers. In 1975 they both start working on the musical trilogy "Gondwana – Laurasia – Pangea", which was later abandoned, and the material was reworked and used differently up to a certain level. The 18-minute-long song "Ostrov" (Island), from his first Slovak album "Pevnina detstva", is a remnant from the original material, named originally "Tristanov ostrov" (Tristan's Island). The album was recorded in late 1977 and released in 1978, and again didn't gain practically any success, partly because it was not at all promoted by the media and the publishing industry, because of various problems with censorship. However the album is also a classic now for the fans of the Czechoslovak progressive scene, and musically it is very much treasured, "Ostrov" is a jazz rock masterpiece, and Štrpka's lyrics are praised as well.
In 1979 another album, "Nové mapy ticha" was released, which introduced shorter songs and some more accessible lyrics (which was, however, even more apparent on several subsequent albums). The backing band was named Burčiak (Federweisser) and with this group Ursiny released also another album "Modrý vrch", which is considered to be his best by the most of his fans and the critics. By this time he had written music to various films, including popular television musical "Neberte nám princeznú" (Don't take the princess away from us), with its songs performed by singers
Marika Gombitová
Marika Gombitová (; born 12 September 1956) is a Slovak singer-songwriter and musician. Once a member of Modus, Gombitová started to gain early acclaim as a former female vocalist of the group. Nevertheless, she gradually developed her publi ...
,
Miroslav Žbirka
Miroslav "Miro" Žbirka (21 October 1952 – 10 November 2021) was a Slovak pop and rock singer and songwriter, widely popular in 1980s Czechoslovakia. Born in Bratislava to a Slovak father and an English mother, he sang in Slovak, English, and ...
and
Marie Rottrová
Marie may refer to:
People Name
* Marie (given name)
* Marie (Japanese given name)
* Marie (murder victim), girl who was killed in Florida after being pushed in front of a moving vehicle in 1973
* Marie (died 1759), an enslaved Cree person in T ...
. Songs from this musical are for sure most remembered by the people from all the music ever written by Ursiny.
In 1983 the album "4/4" was released with the band named Prognóza (Prognosis), and in 1984 "Bez počasia", with band again named Provisorium (the name had then remained on the rest of Ursiny's albums). These brought again simpler lyrics and music, some funky elements which later appeared on subsequent albums. However these albums also failed to make their way to wide public, and next ones "Zelená", "Na ceste domov" again consisted of long tracks. Throughout the time he composed music to another movies, including musical "Niekto ako ja" (Someone like me). He also co-wrote and directed the film "Vôňa života" (Fragrance of life) about sexual education.
In 1989 he was diagnosed with cancer, from which he partly recovered in 1990. In 1991 his movie "O rakovine a nádeji" (Of cancer and hope) was premiered, and in 1992 he released a double album "Ten istý tanec", which included mostly his own lyrics, many of them autobiographical, of meditating character. In 1994 his health grew worse again, he released his final album "Príbeh" which now belongs to his fans' most favourite ones. In December 1994 he played his final show in Prague. He died of cancer on 2 May 1995.
In 1997 and 2000 the two compilation albums "Pevniny a vrchy" and "Pevniny a vrchy 2" were released, which include official recordings from the singles and EPs released during his career as well as various rarities from The Beatmen, The New Soulmen, never released songs or his songs included on albums of other artists. The disc 2 of "Pevniny a vrchy 2" contains live recordings of The Soulmen from the 1st Czechoslovak Beat Festival from 1967 and of Provisorium from 1971, in a very low sound quality. The album "Pevniny a vrchy" was part of the eponymous biography of Ursiny by Marián Jaslovský. ( )
Discography
With The Beatmen
Singles
* ''Safely Arrived/The Enchanted Lie - 1965 (
Supraphon
Supraphon Music Publishing is a Czech record label, oriented mainly towards publishing classical music and popular music, with an emphasis on Czech and Slovak composers.
History
The Supraphon name was first registered as a trademark in 1932. ...
)''
* ''Break It/Let's Make A Summer - 1965 (Supraphon)''
With The Soulmen
EP
* ''Sample Of Happiness/Wake Up/I Wish I Were/Baby Do Not Cry – 1968 (Panton)''
Solo career
Studio albums
English album
* ''Dežo Ursiny & Provisorium – 1973 (Supraphon)''
Slovak albums (all but the first one as Dežo Ursiny – Ivan Štrpka):
* ''Pevnina detstva (Childhood's Mainland) – 1978 (Opus)''
* ''Nové mapy ticha (New Maps Of Silence) – 1979 (Opus)''
* ''Modrý vrch (Blue Hill) – 1981 (Opus)''
* ''4/4 – 1983 (Opus)''
* ''Bez počasia (Without Weather) – 1984 (Opus)''
* ''Zelená (Green) – 1986 (Opus)''
* ''Na ceste domov (On The Way Home) – 1987 (Opus)''
* ''Momentky (Snapshots) – 1990 (Opus)''
* ''Do tla (Burned To Embers) – 1991 (Opus)''
* ''Ten istý tanec (The Same Dance) – 1992 (Arta)''
* ''Príbeh (Story) – 1994 (BMG Ariola)''
Compilation albums:
* ''Pevniny a vrchy (Mainlands And Hills) – 1997 (Bonton/
Slovenský rozhlas
Slovenský rozhlas (; "Slovak Radio") or SRo was a state-owned nationwide public-service radio broadcaster in Slovakia. It was headquartered in Bratislava in a building shaped like an inverted pyramid.
History
SRo began broadcasting from Br ...
)''
* ''Pevniny a vrchy 2 (Mainlands And Hills 2) – 2000 (Sony Music Bonton)''
Live:
* ''Posledný príbeh live (The Last Story Live) – 2000 (Rádio Bratislava)''
Single:
* ''Hra je hra/Stá pieseň o daždi – 1980''
See also
*
The Beatmen
*
The Soulmen
The Soulmen were a Slovak rock band singing in English, that existed from 1967 to 1968. Together with The Beatmen they were the most important Slovak Big Beat bands.Big Beat being the name used in Czechoslovakia (and some other countries of the ...
*
Jaroslav Filip
*
The 100 Greatest Slovak Albums of All Time
The 100 Greatest Slovak Albums of All Time is a list of the best album releases issued by Slovak recording artists. As the first such list presented in Slovakia, it was published by '' Nový čas'' daily on 22 September 2007.
The list is entirely ...
Notes
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ursiny, Dezo
1947 births
1995 deaths
Czechoslovak Big Beat groups and musicians
Slovak musicians
Deaths from cancer in Slovakia