May 16

Yuri Yulianovich Shevchuk was born this day. He is a Soviet and Russian singer/songwriter who leads the rock band DDT, which he founded with Vladimir Sigachev in 1980. Shevchuk was born in Yagodnoye in Magadan Oblast and raised in Ufa,Bashkir ASSR, though he now resides in St. Petersburg, Russia. Shevchuk was an art teacher before founding DDT. He is best known for his distinctive gravelly voice. His lyrics detail aspects of Russian life with a wry, humanistic sense of humor. He is also very famous for openly opposing pop music. He is often accredited with being the greatest song-writer in present-day Russia.
Shevchuk is highly critical of the undemocratic society that has developed in Vladimir Putin's Russia. On 3 March 2008 he participated in aDissenters March in Saint Petersburg against the president elections where no real opposition candidates were allowed to run.
On 24 and 26 September 2008 he organized two peace concerts in Moscow and Saint Petersburg as a protest to the Russian-Georgian war. The name of the concert "Don't Shoot" was taken from his song "Ne Strelyai" that he had written in 1980 as a response to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Together with his band DDT he performed with both Ossetian and Georgian musicians as well as the Ukrainian band Bratya Karamazovy that he called peacekeepers. Parts of the profits from the concerts were given to those who had suffered from the war, both Ossetians and Georgians.
In 2008 Shevchuk released a solo album called "L’Echoppe" which includes the controversial song "Kogda zakonchitsya neft" with the lyrics "When the oil runs dry, our president will die".
On 25 August 2010 Shevchuk performed the Bob Dylan song "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" together with U2 at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, the band's first ever concert in Russia.
On 4 January 2011, Shevchuk was featured on the U.S. NPR Morning Edition radio program.