Zdravko Čolić
Zdravko Čolić is a Bosnian and Serbian pop singer who is widely considered one of the greatest vocalists and cultural icons of the former Yugoslavia. He has been compared to Paul McCartney and Tom Jones by music critics and the general public. He has garnered fame in Southeastern Europe for his emotionally expressive tenor voice, fluent stage presence and numerous critically and commercially acclaimed albums and singles.
Among his songs, "Ti si mi u krvi", from the eponymous album, is widely considered one of the most popular ballads of ex-Yugoslav music.
Early life
Born in Sarajevo, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia to Bosnian Serb parents, police administrator Vladimir Čolić from the Vlahovići village near Ljubinje and homemaker Stana Čolić from Trebinje, Čolić grew up with a younger brother Dragan. Showing an early interest in sports, the youngster was active as a football goalkeeper in FK Željezničar's youth system, before switching to track and field where he also excelled in the 100 metres and long jump. At one point he ran a 100-meter dash in 11.3 seconds, and continually placed high at various events he entered. Čolić eventually gave up on a career in sports, feeling he lacked the discipline required to compete regularly.Growing up in Sarajevo, Čolić attended the Vladimir Perić Valter elementary school in the neighborhood near the adjacent neighborhood of Grbavica where he lived. He also attended music school, studying guitar playing. As a hobby, he took part in various school recitals and also acted in a couple of plays at the Pionirsko pozorište.
Early career
Early years
From a very young age, Čolić showed an interest in music. With friend Braco Isović, he played guitar at informal and impromptu park gatherings around their neighborhood through which they became known locally as 'Čola i Isa sa Grbavice'. At the time, Čolić was trying to emulate pop schlager music that dominated Yugoslav and Italian festivals. His first love was Milena Mijatović from Belgrade.His first significant public singing experience occurred in 1967 while at the Montenegrin coast for the Yugoslav Republic Day celebrations. Staying in the wooden prefab vacation home his family owned in the coastal community of Baošići, seventeen-year-old Čolić was persuaded by a friend, Nedim Idrizović, to enter an amateur singing competition in nearby Bijela. The teenager won second prize singing "Lady Madonna" by The Beatles.
Encouraged by the unexpected success, soon after returning to Sarajevo, Čolić entered his first band—a group called 'Mladi i lijepi'. This participation lasted until he graduated high school in 1969 when he decided to move on to the more established Ambasadori, a band whose two incarnations Čolić would end up staying with for the next two and a half years.
Ambasadori
When Čolić joined them, Ambasadori employed an unusual setup: being essentially a military cover band as all the musicians, except for bandleader Slobodan Vujović, were Yugoslav People's Army ranked officers. Their repertoire centered around the 1960s rhythm & blues along with obligatory Yugoslav hits of the day and years past, and finally even a few original numbers written by the bandmembers thrown into the mix. Over time, the group started getting more gig offers, which presented a problem since its army part was not available for many of them, and those offers had to be declined.Seeing their opportunities limited by the strange situation, Vujović and Čolić decided to step out and form Novi ambasadori in 1970, bringing in drummer Perica Stojanović, organist Vlado Pravdić, saxophonist Lale Stefanović, and bassist Zlatko Hold. With the almost all-new lineup, the band also expanded its repertoire so that in addition to R&B they now also played covers of Led Zeppelin, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and others. In the summer of 1970, Novi ambasadori scored a month-long gig with Indexi in Dubrovnik, which was their first tour-like experience.
Next step was competing at the 1971 annual festival in Sarajevo where they finished in 7th place with a song "Plačem za tvojim usnama" that songwriter Zdenko Runjić claimed to have composed and officially signed his name under, even though it was a blatant rip-off of The Tremeloes' "Suddenly You Love Me". No one from the festival noticed this plagiarism and the band avoided the controversy. The song was even released on a 7-inch single "Plačem za tvojim usnama" / "Zapjevaj" by Beograd Disk and sold surprisingly well. The performance at Vaš šlager sezone was also significant since it marked the band's first television appearance, exposing them to a much larger audience. One of the people in that TV audience was Kornelije Kovač, an already influential and established figure in Yugoslav music circles, who immediately was intrigued by Čolić's "clean tenor and good stage presence".
Čolić was soon offered a "bench role" with Indexi, to fill in for their singer Davorin Popović, and even performed with them a couple of times.
Korni grupa
In the meantime, during the summer of 1971, Čolić finally met face to face with Kornelije Kovač who came to see Čolić play in Mostar and invited him to join his band Korni Grupa as a replacement to their departed singer Dado Topić.On 10 September 1971, twenty-year-old Čolić left his hometown and moved to the capital Belgrade to join his new band. However, his stint with Korni grupa ultimately proved to be very short and largely unsuccessful as he never meshed well enough with the rest of the group musically, finding it hard to fit into their progressive rock style. He recorded three tracks with them, "Kukavica, "Gospa Mica gazdarica", and "Pogledaj u nebo", all of which were released on the 7-inch single by PGP-RTB. Track "Gospa Mica gazdarica" managed to create minor controversy due to the slightly risque lyrics written from the perspective of a young man imploring his older female landlord to allow him into her bed—a nod to Čolić's life at the time since he was living away from home in sublet apartments. Due to numerous complaints, the song was taken off radio playlists.
Soon, however, Čolić and Kovač agreed that it would be better for Čolić to go solo. Only six months after his arrival to Belgrade, he returned to Sarajevo determined to give his solo career a try.
Solo career
Early activity: Schlager festivals
On 15 April 1972 Čolić's first solo move was taking part in the competitive festival in Sarajevo. He won the third audience prize as well as the interpretation award with Kemal Monteno written song "Sinoć nisi bila tu" that was originally meant to be sung by Josipa Lisac who opted out at the last moment.Right away, under Kovač's guidance Čolić managed to establish a fair amount of prominence as a solo act—and on 20 May 1972 the two appeared as guests on the very popular TV Belgrade variety show hosted by Milena Dravić and Dragan Nikolić. The same year, Čolić made further appearances at the Split Festival, Priština festival, and Skopje Festival, before embarking on a tour of Soviet Union together with Indexi, Bisera Veletanlić, Sabahudin Kurt, and Sabina Varešanović.
Eurovision and more festivals
Then came the first big break that launched him on the road to stardom. By winning at the Opatija festival with the song "Gori vatra" written by Kemal Monteno, Čolić got to represent SFR Yugoslavia at the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest on 7 April 1973 in Luxembourg City. The song placed poorly but became a well-respected hit at home.Riding the wave of exposure the Eurovision appearance afforded him, Čolić continued entering competitive festivals throughout SFR Yugoslavia over the next two years with plenty of success. At Hit parada festival in Belgrade on 23 November 1974, he won with the song "Ona spava", composed and written by Kornelije Kovač. The following year, Čolić bagged a few more festival wins with Kovač's songs—Beogradsko proleće with "April u Beogradu", and Vaš šlager sezone with "Zvao sam je Emili". Other songs he performed at various festivals in those years were "Bling blinge blinge bling", "Ljubav je samo riječ", and "Zelena si rijeka bila".
Around the same time, he also signed a deal with the German arm of WEA record label and did two singles for that market. German producers thought that his name was too difficult to pronounce for their consumers so they marketed him as Dravco. Soon, however, Čolić decided not to pursue his options there given the lack of enthusiasm for his music there.
Debut album
His first solo album was Ti i ja, released in 1975 by Jugoton. Closely overseen by Kornelije Kovač, the album brought Čolić more hits like "Vagabund", "Igraš se vatrom", and "Loše vino". Cover sleeve was done by Dragan S. Stefanović, another collaborator who would remain with Čolić for years to come. Čolić's image especially appealed to girls and women, something that would remain a staple of his entire career. The same year, cashing in on his sudden popularity upswing, PGP RTB released a compilation of his festival singles under the name Zdravko Čolić.Despite, achieving great prominence already, Čolić continued appearing at the occasional festival such as the Zagreb one in 1976 where he surprisingly finished in fourth place singing "Ti si bila, uvijek bila". At the end of that year, he went on a Yugoslavia-wide tour with Indexi. After the Belgrade concert, the measure of his sudden fame was on public display during autograph-signing at the Jugoton store as the cordon of girls rushed the store, breaking a window glass in an attempt to get closer to him.
The next year, 1977, he did the festival circuit for the last time, first in Zagreb with "Živiš u oblacima", followed by an appearance at the Festival of Patriotic Songs also in Zagreb, where he performed. That song was soon released on a 7-inch and sold 300,000 copies.