Czesław Niemen (Polish pronunciation:[ˈt͡ʂɛswafˈɲɛmɛn]; born Czesław Juliusz Wydrzycki; February 16, 1939 – January 17, 2004), often credited as just Niemen, was one of the most important and original Polish singer-songwriters and rock balladeers of the 20th century,[1][2][3] singing mainly in Polish.
He made his debut in the early 1960s, singing Polish rock and soul music. He possessed an unusually wide voice range and equally rich intonation. He was also an ardent composer and a keyboard player.[5]
In 1964 at Congress Hall, Warsaw, Niemen, together with his group, played as a support act to Marlene Dietrich during her concert.[6] She heard his song "Czy mnie jeszcze pamiętasz" ("Do you still remember me?") there. She enjoyed it so much that she soon wrote her own lyrics for the song and recorded "Mutter, Hast du Mir Vergeben" ("Mother, have you forgiven me?").[7]
Soon after his first successful concerts in France, he started to use the pseudonym Niemen instead of his real name, gaining wider notoriety in Poland and making it easier to pronounce by foreigners (Niemen is a Polish pronunciation of the Neman River, which flows in close proximity to his place of birth). His 1967 song "Dziwny jest ten świat" (Strange Is This World) is commonly acknowledged to be the most important Polish protest song of that era; an English version was also recorded in 1972. The song was influenced by the American blues tradition. [1] He was one of the first Polish performers to wear long hair and colourful clothes and introduced the style of psychedelia to communist Poland, which displeased officials.
The first three LP album's Niemen recorded with his band "Akwarele" (Watercolours). Subsequently, he recorded with his other new bands: "Enigmatic", "Grupa Niemen" and "Aerolit". In 1969 he changed his musical style to progressive rock while recording the monumental album Enigmatic. That album's most notable song was "Bema pamięci żałobny rapsod" (A Mournful Rhapsody in Memory of Józef Bem), based on the 19th-century poem by Cyprian Kamil Norwid. The rest of Enigmatic's songs were also in sung poetry form.[8] Niemen played the Hammond organ on his records, later moving to the mellotron and the Moog synthesizer.
Niemen went on to compose film soundtracks and theater music, and in the 1990s he showed interest in art, painting and computer graphics.
He died of cancer on January 17, 2004, in Warsaw. His remains were cremated and placed in a columbarium niche on Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw on January 30, 2004.[11]
A number of documentaries on the life of Niemen were filmed including Marek Piwowski's 1968 film Sukces,[12] Krzysztof Rogulski's 1976 film Niemen,[13] Eugeniusz Szpakowski's 2007 film Czesław Niemen,[14] and Krzysztof Magowski's 2014 film Sen o Warszawie (A Dream About Warsaw).[15]
Since March 12, 2004, Czesław Niemen's song Sen o Warszawie has been performed before each match of Legia Warsaw at the Stadion Wojska Polskiego and is considered the club fans' anthem.
In 2009, National Bank of Poland presented three coins dedicated to Niemen: issued on June 19 two silver 10-zloty coins, one of which of square shape, and issued on June 17, 2-zloty coin of Nordic Gold alloy.[16][17]
On February 20, 2011, a museum devoted to Niemen and his musical legacy was opened in the artist's birthplace in Stare Wasiliszki, present-day Belarus.[18]
Niemen's support bands
Niemen cooperated with the following bands; some of them were support musicians, while others were independent bands: "Akwarele" ("Watercolours") (1967–1969),[19] "I Niemen" ("And Niemen") (1969–1970), also under the name "Niemen Enigmatic"), "Grupa Niemen" (made of the members of Silesian Blues Band), Niebiesko-Czarni, "Aerolit", and female vocal band Alibabki. "Aerolit" accompanied Czesław Niemen in 1974–1978. Initially it was formed from young musicians of the rock band Krzak: Jacek Gazda, Jan Błędowski, Maciej Radziejewski, Piotr Dziemski.[20] The word means "aerolite" in Polish.
