Željko Bebek
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Želimir "Željko" Bebek (born December 16, 1945) is a popular Bosnian Croat singer.
Bebek was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. He showed an early interest in music, entertaining his mother's guests by singing songs he heard on the radio. He also experimented with harmonica, but abandoned it in third grade of primary school as he wanted to play guitar and sing along. His teacher, however, discouraged such intentions so Željko ended up playing mandolin instead. He soon became the school's best mandolin player and was allowed to play guitar as a reward.
He entered his first band at the age of 16. It was called Eho 61 and it also featured Kornelije Kovač, Zoran and Fadil Redžić all of whom were, like Bebek, students at Sarajevo's 2nd gymnasium. When the band broke up, Željko carried on playing with the Redžićs until Fadil entered Indexi.
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[edit] Career
[edit] Kodeksi
In the early 1960s Edo Bogeljić invited Bebek to join a band he founded called Kodeksi that also featured Ismeta Dervoz on backing vocals and Luciano Paganotto on drums.
Bebek spent the better part of 1960s singing and playing rhythm guitar with the band, helping them become quite prominent locally. As Kodeksi had problems filling the bass player spot all throughout this period, Bebek recommended young 18-year-old Goran Bregović after seeing him play with Bestije in 1969. Realizing Kodeksi were more established on the scene than Bestije, Goran jumped at the opportunity and immediately joined them. In the summer of 1969, Kodeksi got a season-long gig playing in Dubrovnik's Splendid bar, but just before they were set to depart for Adriatic coast Ismeta Dervoz left the band chosing to devote her full attention to university studies. Their Dubrovnik repertoire was aimed at tourists and consisited mostly of pop covers, folk standards, and easy-listening tunes.
Though it clearly didn't inspire much in terms of creativity, Dubrovnik stay still proved successful as they got spotted by Italian club owner Renato Pacifico who offered a two-month gig in his club in Naples. Infused with new energy the band went back home to Sarajevo in order to hone a new progressive rock set (along the lines of Cream, Jimi Hendrix, etc.), and to obtain the necessary paperwork.
Kodeksi left for Italy in early 1970. However, it soon became apparent that the Italian club owner was clearly disappointed with their new musical shift and wanted them to play kazachok and other similar Eastern European folkish stuff from their Dubrovnik repertoire instead. The band unwillingly agreed.
Just before the first two-month stint ended, the band's founder Edo Bogeljić gave up and went back to Sarajevo, which is when Bregović assumed the lead guitar role for the first time. Local Italian musician was brought in to play the bass, but after he quit too, Bebek called up old friend Zoran Redžić who in turn brough along Milić Vukašinović to replace Paganotto on drums as he also quit in the meantime.
At that time Kodeksi were enjoying a fairly successful run in different clubs and bars throughout southern Italy playing a commercial repertoire and building up a fairly devoted following. Vukašinović's arrival was particularly significant as he brought new musical influences along the lines of what Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were doing at the time. Additionally, he convinced the rest of the band on incorporating new sound into the set. Within two weeks of his arrival, Kodeksi were fired from all the places they were playing. With no gigs and very little savings, the foursome of Bebek, Bregović, Redžić and Vukašinović stayed on the island of Capri. They found gigs extremely hard to come by with the new sound, but eventually got a low-paying one on Ischia island. As the summer season of 1970 drew to a close, that gig ended as well, and they relocated back to Naples where they struggled to make ends meet.
This is when the band began to disregard Bebek more and more. First, they made him stop playing the rhythm guitar reasoning that it's not fashionable any more. Bebek also had trouble adapting to the new material vocally. He'd sing the intro on most songs and then step back as the other three members improvised for the remainder of songs. After being a key band member only months earlier, Bebek was seeing his role gradually reduced. It was more than he was willing to take and sometime during the fall of 1970 he left Kodeksi and returned to Sarajevo.
[edit] Novi Kodeksi
Back home, Bebek immediately "re-founded" Novi Kodeksi with another former member Edo Bogeljić. The new band had little success, although they did break a record for non-stop playing, held up to that point by band Cicak. For New Year's 1971, Novi Kodeksi played on stage for 32 straight hours.
The following year, however, brought more creative stagnation as their repertoire consisted entirely of foreign covers. In December 1971, Bebek received a call-up to serve the mandatory Yugoslav Army service and Novi Kodeksi played their last ever show in Sarajevo's Dom mladih. Bebek also got married and made a decision to leave the music business altogether.
[edit] Jutro
However, just as he was about to leave for the army stint in early 1972, 26-year-old Bebek received an invitation from Bregović (with whom he hadn't spoken for a year-and-a-half since the split in Italy) to record a song "Patim, evo, deset dana" with newly formed band Jutro. Bebek accepted, did his part in the studio, and went away to serve.
In March 1973, after getting back from the army, Bebek joined Jutro in earnest, but, not being sure about the band's creative and commercial potential, he also got a clerk job at social security administration. Jutro, however, soon started becoming successful and he quit the government job to again devote to music full-time.
Jutro soon transformed into Bijelo dugme.
[edit] Bijelo dugme
Bebek continued as vocalist and occasional bass guitarist in Bijelo dugme from its inception in 1974.
Almost 30 years old at this point, he became instant country-wide celebrity.
He ended up spending a full decade with the band before eventually leaving in 1984 to fully pursue a solo career.
[edit] Solo career
Bebek's solo career actually began while he was still with Bijelo dugme. In 1978 he recorded a solo album Skoro da smo isti with drummer Điđi Jankelić, Edo Bogeljić on guitar and Neven Pocrnjić on keyboards. The album wasn't a great success.
In 1984, just before leaving Bijelo dugme he recorded his second solo album Mene tjera neki vrag.
His solo career wasn't very successful, especially so in comparison to his prominence with Dugme. He recorded only minor hits, most of which had a strong folk influence, including "Šta je meni ovo trebalo", "Da Bog da te voda odnijela", "Kako došlo, tako prošlo", "Sinoć sam pola kafane popio" (with lyrics by Bora Đorđević), "Il' me ženi, il' tamburu kupi".
When the Yugoslav wars started, he moved to Zagreb where he continues to live and work. His record labels included Taped Pictures and Croatia Records.
In 2005 he took part in 3 large farewell concerts of Bijelo Dugme.
