Our Choice of Favorite Video of the Week for the First Week of 2017 - We Picked Dr.240252's Vid uploaded on Dec.1-2016 titled- "Skuczno - 'Drearily' -Vocals by Pyotr Leshchenko with His Orchestra".

      For the first week of 2017 we picked for the second time as our YT Video of the Week Feature - Dr. 240252's Video uploaded on Dec.01-2016 - titled "Pyotr Leshchenko's 'Skuczno' - by Pyotr Leschenko and his Orchestra". Dr. 240252 always comes up with magnificent visuals/artwork for his musical selections. The Tango which he picked sounds great - unfortunately - the lyricist and the composer - are - both - uncredited. Leshchenko's vocals accompanied by his orchestra never disappoint - his understated flood of feelings always comes through in a masterfully restrained manner.
      Leshchenko's stormy life and no less turbulent career are examined at length in a TV serial produced by the Ukrainian TV in 2013 - with its most important parts - available on YouTube. The talented Ukrainian actor/singer - Konstantin Khabensky - channels Pyotr Leshchenko's personality in a skillful manner while he conveys the singer's passions without any excessive melodrama.
      The great operatic legend of the nineteen thirties - Fyodor Shalapin - paid a big homage to the "King of 'Crooner's'" of his day - Pyotr Leshchenko - by applauding loudly at the end of Leshchenko's performance and calling him - "King of the Plastic Records" which - by the way - sold like crazy with Leshchenko's numerous beautiful Tangos and Old Romances - in the late nineteen thirties.
      After the Second World War broke out in 1939 - Leshchenko's life and his career became entangled in Nazi Germany's - Hitler's and later - in Stalin's (Soviet Russia's - strongman who killed estimated 4 million innocent people) - dictatorial political storms - until Leshchenko's tragic early death in the Romanian labor camp fashioned after Stalin's huge net of hard labor penal colonies/gulags - death traps to many innocent - frequently - creative people - of which a lot of them were famous and talented ones - who somehow "offended" the dictatorial powers of the day; many of them languished for years in jails/camps after being sentenced by "revolutionary" courts which handed down long prison sentences - left and right - after the trumpeted up, phony charges were quickly handed down. 
     At any rate - have a good first week of 2017 and as always - don't forget to click here a week from today!
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