Romantic Crooner of 1950s: Zvonimir Krkljuš

I honestly doubt that "ordinary man on the street" (how I despise that expression) would know to name handful of singers from Croatian music scene of 1950s - gigantic shadow of Ivo Robić tower over everybody else in the that first post-WW2 period and seems he is the only one remembered from the whole generation of artists who worked back than. Thanks to archival radio recordings we are now aware that pop singers actually worked locally even during 1930s and 1940s but right after the war the profession of "entertainer" was perceived as somehow frivolous - after all, the youth was engaged in re-building of railroads and such, surely someone "just singing" was not really sweating and getting callused hands. That Robić had actually managed to shrug it off and create beautiful, rich career in these circumstances is nothing short of miracle. That his contemporaries stayed far behind is another story - nicely illustrated here.

Zvonimir Krkljuš (b.1921) who tasted the fame first as a five year old child, being selected for "the prettiest child" on a local magazine contest, later found himself as a radio presenter, actor, composer and the very first singer who performed live on radio Zagreb in 1945. Among Miljenko Prohaska, Rajka Vali and her future husband Bojan Hohnjec, Krkljuš was one of the busiest artists of the period, however the main influence on his work was not any of his music idols (Bing Crosby, Alberto Rabagliati) but local composer, great Mario Kinel who apparently single-mindedly created music scene out of thin air and fought with regime to explain his "rotten western" influences. Just as in case of his great protege Ivo Robić, Kinel is behind majority of Krkljuš's repertoire, including not only translated covers but quite long list of now forgotten hits of 1950s.

Krkljuš was a romantic crooner - his songs have to be taken in contest of times and though later generations satirized him (Arsen Dedić and Đorđe Balašević would occasionally affectionally parodied him in concert performances as example of hopelessly old fashioned music) to poke fun at him would be to laugh at the whole generation of people who lived these sentiments back than. From "Hvala Ti" (1945), "Bijela lađa plovi morem", "Kaži zašto me ostavi", "Jedna noć u Kostreni" and beyond, this is soundtrack of some earlier, perhaps naive years when Italy, San Remo and Hollywood musicals were accepted as family entertainment - Rock'n'roll might have already started but Krkljuš was all into "Ramona", "Arivederci Roma", Mario Lanza and even Nelson Eddy/Jeanette McDonald "Mayday". He was also one of the very first comspoers and performers on than-new Zagreb music festival. It might seem strange that as a artist Krkljuš actually looked backward at previous decades - listening to his music, one can't help but recognize aesthetics from 1930s and 1940s - but he still deserves to be recognized as a stepping stone towards future crooners like Stjepan Jimmy Stanić or Drago Diklić who directly followed his direction. Yes, its all very sentimental and romantic and old fashioned - but there is also a unexpected beauty in his cover of Italian ballad "La Vita E Un Paradiso di Bugie".