Songs

Christie
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christie behind the iron curtain
 

Iron curtainTHE pop music industry in the Iron Curtain regions owes a great deal to Christie. They were the first foreign pop band to perform live in these countries, introducing the rock sounds of Western nations to millions of people.
     Their most celebrated performance there was at the Sopot Song Festival in Poland in 1970, televised via satellite to 200 million viewers in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries.
     Today, Christie are perhaps better known among many pop fans in the eastern bloc than they are remembered in other parts of the world.
     In 2001, Jeff Christie and his band returned to Russia to perform live, playing to rapturous audiences. See these gallery pictures.
     Read this enlightening account from a Russian Christie fan to find out more about the group's influence.
     Unfortunately, because the industry in these countries was almost non-existent in the heady days of Christie's fame, no contractual agreement was able to be put in place for locally-made Christie recordings (or, indeed, recordings by any other Western bands).
     As such, companies in Russia and adjoining countries can still often produce recordings by various artists without having to pay royalties — a move which represents piracy of sorts, but certainly at a more sophisticated level than that practiced in many Asian countries.
  

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