Mira Kubasińska and a breakdown of her artistic career

Abstract

Mira Kubasińka (1944–2005) was one of the most charismatic vocalists of the Polish pop-music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. She achieved great success with the Breakout group and the status of a big-beat music star in Poland. Kubasińska’s unquestionable assets were naturalness and freedom of artistic expression. She had interesting vocal qualities, an impeccable sense of rhythm and a rare ability to shape the musical phrase. The pieces she performed were emotionally charged and stressed her extraordinary interpretative skills. The most important achievements of Kubasińska are the albums released in the peak period of the Breakout’s activity, that is, in the years 1969–1973, especially the album Fire (Muza Records 1973). After that Kubasińska's career declined sharply, which was caused by various factors, including primarily a severe crisis and finally the breakdown of her marriage with Nalepa, which had fatal consequences in the form of growing alcohol addiction, depression, and permanent material problems. Over the next decade, Kubasińska performed rarely. In 1994, she tried to make a permanent comeback to the stage with the band After Blues. From 2003 she collaborated with the blues-rock group KG Band which was ended by her sudden death in 2005. As far as artistic values are concerned, Kubasińska's later activity was only a shadow of her former achievements with the Breakout. This text, which is a contributory biographical sketch, focuses primarily on the factors and circumstances that led to the collapse of one of the most brilliant careers of the Polish big-beat era.