Валерий Меладзе

Valerian Shotayevich Meladze (born 23 June 1965), known professionally as Valery Meladze, is a Russian singer of Georgian descent and a Meritorious Artist of Russia. He is the brother of composer and producer Konstantin Meladze, who writes songs for him. His homemade album "April" reached the producer of the successful Soviet Union group Dialog. The producer liked Valeriy's voice, and Valeriy joined Dialog as the lead singer, with Konstantin starting to write songs for the group. This culminated in the band's 1991 album, "Poseredine Mira" (Посерeдине Мира; Middle of the World). Dialog's popularity had declined, however, and the group disbanded in 1991. In 1992, Valeriy joined Dialog's founder Kim Breitburg and guitarist Viktor Litvinenko to form Gruppa Dialog and, later, Mistiquana, but in 1993 he also launched his solo career. During The Moscow Tour, Valeriy and Konstantin met their future producer Evgeniy Friedland. Evgeniy helped to record the first of Valeriy's songs – "Ne Trevoz Mne Dushu Skripka" (Не тревожь мне душу, скрипка; Don't Disturb my soul, violin). After the success of the song, Evgeniy asked Valeriy to change his last name (surname) from "Meladze" to "Lisov" or "Lisovskiy," in effect translating it from Georgian to Russian ("mela" and "lisa" both meaning "fox" in their respective languages). However, he refused to change his name. Many labels didn't want to work with Meladze, "because this music was not modern...long and not happy." But in 1995 Alla Pugacheva heard their demo record, and she invited Valeriy to sing their song at "The Christmas Meeting" in Moscow. After his success there, Valeriy released his debut solo album "Sera" (Сера) on the music label "Souz." The eponymous "Sera" became relatively popular, with "Poserеdine Leta" (Посередине Лета; The Middle Of Summer) and "Noch' Pered Rozdestvom" (Ночь Перед Рождеством; Christmas Eve) also seeing significant success. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.