Russian Doll

Thanks to Woody Guthrie and the passage of time, the image of the penniless folk musician wandering the countryside, living out of a guitar case and surviving strictly by entertaining people has acquired mythic status here in America. The contemporary Russian equivalent emerged in the form of late folk-punk icon Yanka Dyagileva, and the image of grit and poverty has remained central to her legend. But whether or not you’ve even heard of Yanka Dyagileva, you’re in luck, as singer/songwriter Alina Simone performs a concert of Dyagileva’s material at Joe’s Pub this Friday. The show is a preview of her album of Yanka covers, Everyone Is Crying Out to Me, Beware, which will be released this summer.

Born in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, Dyagileva was only active as a performer from 1987 until her mysterious death in 1991. For most of that period, Dyagileva, who sang and played guitar, criss-crossed the Soviet Union by freight train, playing at mostly informal gatherings in apartments and dorms—with occasional appearances in traditional venues and festivals.

Meanwhile, her body of work—which consists of 29 original tunes and some covers (as well as a book of poetry)—was only ever documented on rough, lo-fi recordings. Though this hardly constitutes what we in the States would think of as a “career,” Dyagileva’s music and legacy keeps growing because of enthusiastic tape trading, bootlegging and, more recently, immortality via the Internet, where her entire catalog awaits intrepid listeners for free.

Alina Simone is also of Russian descent; but she was initially unaware of underground Russian music until she came across a tape of Dyagileva’s songs. She astutely bridges the gap between her distinct sense for arrangement and groove and Dyagileva’s barebones punk attack. With the exception of “Special Reason,” where she remains faithful to Dyagileva’s straight guitar-vocal format, Simone brings expansiveness and layering to the material. On “My Sadness Is Luminous,” for example, Simone opens the rhythm of the song up for a more atmospheric feel and adds percussion and a chant chorus that the more succinct original never had.

“Yanka never had the opportunity to go into a fancy studio,” says Simone. “She was recording this music during the Soviet era, usually in very makeshift surroundings—sometimes literally on a boom box. So part of me wanted to take these songs and sort of lavish studio treatment on them. It was partly my own curiosity, and partly that I could just hear other things in them. And there are themes in the songs that I really wanted to explore and push to their limit, make them more orchestral.”

Still, she stays true to the fire blazing under Dyagileva’s weighty despair.

“I didn’t want to ruin the magic and power by losing the spontaneity,” explains Simone. “So I played a really crappy classical guitar, which reminded me of the buzzy sound of her guitar. It’s got that can-never-be-properly-in-tune sound. And all of my vocals and guitar were recorded together live in one take.”

April 4 (w/Eugene Mirman) at Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette St. (betw. Astor Pl. & E. 4th St.), 212-967-7555; 9:30, $12.