Biography
American singer/songwriter Gene Raskin earned lasting recognition by adapting a longstanding Russian folk melody into the worldwide smash “Those Were the Days,” which Welsh vocalist Mary Hopkin turned into a global phenomenon in 1968. Born in New York City in 1909, he pursued architectural studies at Columbia University and later held an adjunct professorship there from 1936 until 1976. His dramatic works appeared in 1949 with the play One’s a Crowd and again in 1951 with Amata, while 1954 saw the release of Architecturally Speaking, the first of three volumes he authored on architecture. In the early 1960s he and his wife performed regularly in Greenwich Village folk venues as the duo Gene & Francesca; Tetragrammaton issued their self-titled LP in 1962, which featured “Those Were the Days,” a melody of Russian or Ukrainian heritage long known as “Dorogoj Dlinnoyu” and traceable to the early twentieth century. Russian cabaret performer Alexander Vertinsky and gypsy vocalists Rada & Nikolai Volshaninov had previously recorded the piece, yet it reached a broader audience after Maria Schell performed it in the 1958 film version of The Brothers Karamazov; Raskin supplied fresh English lyrics while preserving the original melody. The Limelighters later brought both that song and Raskin’s own composition “That’s Just the Way It Goes” to wider attention. While Gene & Francesca were headlining London’s Blue Lamp Club in 1966, Paul McCartney attended one of their shows; two years afterward, preparing material for protégé Mary Hopkin’s debut on Apple Records, McCartney recommended she record “Those Were the Days.” The resulting single held the top spot on the U.K. pop charts for six weeks during the fall of 1968. Hopkin also cut versions in Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Hebrew, ultimately selling eight million copies worldwide and giving Apple its largest success apart from the Beatles themselves. In subsequent decades the song was interpreted by the Ventures, Engelbert Humperdinck, the 5th Dimension, Wanda Jackson, and the Three Tenors. Raskin passed away in New York on June 7, 2004.