Bandmembers in Black Russian were Serge Kapustin and Natasha Kapustin, a married couple, along with Natasha’s brother Vladimir Shneider. The two Shneiders were the children of folk musicians and had been trained as classical pianists. Although identified as Russian, they were actually born in Latvia, a separate country now. In 1973 at an underground rock gathering at Moscow University, Natasha Shneider met Serge Kapustin, the son of a radio broadcaster, and he joined her in the Soviet orchestra where she was employed. The three began making plans to emigrate to America as early as May of that year.
They had been successful musicians in the U.S.S.R. but were worn down by the capricious restrictions of the Communist establishment. Serge Kapustin said that he was once forced to take out a bass line in one of their songs because it sounded “too Western”, and not more than one fourth of their songs could typically be sung in English.
As quoted in the blog What Fresh Hell is This (overall the best source on information on Black Russian that I was able to find on the Internet), People magazine said of the group in their October 16, 1980 issue: “The Kapustins were members of Sovremennik, a state-run pop orchestra, with Natasha [Kapustin] on vocals and piano and Serge [Kapustin] on guitar and percussion. Vladimir [Shneider] produced and played piano for the Singing Hearts, which was one of Russia’s hottest groups in the mid-’70s. But, as Vladimir notes, they were pumping out more agitprop than pop. ‘We’d sing 37 songs about how good the Communist Party is, and at the end — if we were lucky — we were allowed to play a mellow song like ‘Killing Me Softly’ or ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’. But never rock.”
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Serge Kapustin, Natasha Kapustin and Vladimir Shneider of Black Russian were dissident Russian Jews who defected in May 1976 and came to New York City. They eventually saved enough to go to Hollywood where they auditioned for Berry Gordy at Motown Records. People magazine notes that this delay in their success in this country was just as well: “The group couldn’t go public with its fascinating story until six additional family members arrived safely in the U.S.”
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What Fresh Hell is This quotes this item in the June 14. 1980 issue of Billboard Magazine about Black Russian: “Actually from the U.S.S.R., Black Russian is a pop trio which makes crystalline pop/r&b that comes across as a more r&b-oriented ABBA. Natasha Kapustin has an excellent soaring voice. ‘Leave Me Now’ really gives her room to show off her vocal strength. The production is exceptionally clean with Vladimir Shneider’s keyboard and the synthesizers of Serge [Kapustin] and Natasha Kapustin lending a cushy sheen. The album is evenly divided between uptempo dance cuts and moody ballads. Best cuts: ‘Mystified’, ‘Leave Me Now’, ‘Emptiness’, ‘New York City’, ‘Love’s Enough’.”
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The songs by Black Russian are all in English, with Natasha Kapustin handling most of the vocals; they have something of a disco-lite vibe in keeping with the time period. The bandmembers wrote all of the music and also produced and arranged all of the songs on the album. Besides vocals, Serge Kapustin plays keyboards and guitar, Natasha Kapustin plays keyboards and synthesizers, and Vladimir Shneider plays synthesizers. Another eight musicians are listed on the credits at Discogs; Guy Costa – their first contact at Motown Records – is identified as co-producer.
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As to Vladimir Shneider, there are numerous books published by an author of that name, but I am not sure he is the same one who was in Black Russian.
(April 2015/1)
