Josipa Lisac

ok so Josipa is an apsolute must hear of Yugoslavian/Croatian music.

As an extraordinary musically gifted child, at the age of 10 she became a member of the Croatian National Television choir. While singing the serious musical
repertoire, from the old sacral, classical and modern-avangarde, to folk-traditional music, she acquired her first and then more and more rich musical education. Although she was brought up on Monteverdi, Bach, Beethoven and Britten, soon she started to take real interest in rock music, and in 1967 she became the lead singer of a popular rock group O’HARA, and shortly afterwards ZLATNI AKORDI (“Golden chords”). Her very first appearance in public provoked a true sensation with the mass audience: her singing sublimes the very best from the variety of the musical genres, and her first festival appearance, on the greatest popular music festival of that time in the Croatian town Opatija, announces the arrival and the appearance of an extraordinary singing personality on then-Yugoslavian music scene.

Acquaintance, friendship and love with a popular Croatian rock’n’roll singer and composer, Karlo Metikos (internationally known as Matt Collins), completely rounds off both her life and her musical direction. Karlo’s experience and strong personality as an author shaped Josipa Lisac as a unique artist and a woman. Their first joint LP album from 1973, “Dnevnik jedne ljubavi” (“Diary of one love”), remains until today one of the best conceptual rock achievements in ex-Yugoslavian and Croatian discography. Together they made around 13 LP albums and CDs, in all of which Karlo Metikos acted as an author and a producer.

Josipa Lisac soon proved her multiple talents with an acclaimed and demanding performance as the girl Jana in the first Croatian (and Yugoslavian) rock opera “Gubec-beg”, by Ivica Krajac, Karlo Metikos and Miljenko Prohaska, which had its premiere in 1975. The same year she made a jazz album with some of the world’s greatest musicians of that genre (Ernie Wilkins, Clark Terry, Johnny Basso…), called “Josipa Lisac & B.P. Convention Big Band International”, produced by Bosko Petrovic and Karlo Metikos. Soon afterwards she leaves with Karlo to the USA for three years, where she makes recordings and collaborates with some of the top American musicians (Ira Newborn, Paulinho da Costa, Joel Peskin, etc); the result of which is “Made in USA” album, recorded in 1979, on both English and Croatian language, in the LA’s Studio 55 and Sounds good recordings. During the 1980s Josipa continued to occasionally record albums and perform back in Yugoslavia.

The sudden death of Karlo Metikos on December 10, 1991, along with the turbulent beginning of the 90-is, brought considerable changes to the context of her work. In the following years she prepares numerous concerts as a tribute to him, which are traditionally held until today. Her latest studio album, symbolically called “Zivot” (“Life”), made in the year 2000, was marked by the modern sound and experimenting with electronics, thanks to the collaboration with a versatile producer and orchestrator Gojko Tomljanovic. After a 13-year break from recording a studio album (since “Boginja” [“Goddess”] in 1987), she promoted “Zivot” on the tribute concert to Karlo in the December 2000. The year 2005 produced yet another remake, on the concert in Zagreb dedicated to the songs of the progressive/folk-rock veteran, Drago Mlinarec, where Josipa performed a song entitled “Helena lijepa i ja u kisi” (“The beautiful Helena and me in the rain”).

The first album “Dnevnik jedne ljubavi”, recorded in collaboration with musicians from the progressive rock band TIME, is highly recommended to prog fans. Other albums are also worth investigating, where she developed quite an eclectic musical and art concept mixing rock, pop, jazz, R’n’B and contemporary symphonic music. Styling and design have always been one of important elements of her artistic expression.

(adapted from http://www.josipalisac.com/en/story.html)

check out  a mix of my favrite Josipa Lisac songs in the comments!

 

selam.