Dino Dvornik
The music legacy of Dino Dvornik (20 August 1964 – 7 September 2008), as well as his permanently intertwined private and showbusiness life witness an enormous talent and feature eruptive music based on furious rhythm and passion regardless of the magnitude of inspiration. It became obvious as early as 1989, when he debuted with an album featuring the megahit Zašto praviš slona od mene, one of the biggest hits in the end of the ‘80s. Dino thus declared that funk was neither a teenage fad nor a trendy “inclination”, but a pure and genuine passion. He proved it with his following projects, such as Kreativni nered music album released a year later, including exceptional songs like Udri jače manijače, which remains at the very top of Croatian music heritage of the ‘90s.
Even though the war years and the drastic dwindling of his former market deprived Dino of huge sales figures and sold-out tours, they did not affect his creativity. His 1993 album Priroda i društvo takes a step towards covering more serious issues, proving at the same time that Dino was equally capable of putting together flawless R'n'B-pop stylisations and of successfully experimenting with techno/house rhythms permeating the album. While Croatian scene adhered to dance music, in 1995 he released Afrika, one of the best and most influential songs of Croatian music of the ‘90s, followed by an extraordinary music album Enfant Terrible two years later. He remained dedicated to funk until the very end and the Pandorina kutija album released posthumously, immediately after the too early passing of the uncrowned Croatian “King of Funk”.
Oliver Dragojević
Oliver Dragojević (7 December 1947 – 29 July 2018), the singer who had earned to be called “The Voice”, exactly like Frank Sinatra. Also known as “the Cosmic Dalmatian”, “the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost of Dalmatian song and the Southern comfort”, which he patented long ago with his emotional vocal rasp, Oliver most certainly was the best singer among the musicians and the best musician among the singers. A multi-instrumentalist and an excellent keyboardist, over the course of his long-standing career he made his way from rock to popular music and jazzy stylisations. He first gave his voice and soul to the numerous eternal melodies of the Split Festival written by Zdenko Runjić, while in the ‘90s he started a new lucrative era with song Cesarica, enriching his career through cooperation with a series of young composers.
While he was the cult “Dalmatian singer” in the ‘70s and the ‘80s with the anthemic and anthological songs such as Galeb, Malinkolija, Oprosti mi pape, Skalinada, Karoca, Ništa nova, Stina and other, reaching far outside the regional borders, in the ‘90s and the new millennium he became the biggest and the shiniest star of (not only) Croatian scene. Moreover, he gave a unique emotional timbre to the great ballads typical of his opus in the 2000s, cooperating successfully with composers and musicians of other genres whom he saw as brothers in passion, inspiration and music preferences, just as he saw Ray Charles, Wonder or Cocciante. It yielded compositions presented in the most important global concert venues, which comprise the grand finale of the magnificent career of a singer (and a musician) who entrusted us with eternal melodies until “the end of time” through his unbearable lightness of talent and musicianship. As an epitaph and as a testament.
Toma Bebić
Toma Bebić (1939 – February 1990), an aphorist, a dishevelled poet, a conversationalist, a stubborn promoter of just any alternative who even authored picture books and twisted aphorism books became a legend during his lifetime. Indeed, only a small discography opus remains after his premature demise, but the influence of his key music items was much, much wider. It is no wonder, considering that Toma and his most famous songs like Kaleta, Nevera, Oya Noya, Smoči svoj..., Ča smo na ovome svitu, Leute moj, Marčelina and other songs became sort of anthems of both the traditionalists and the supporters of the alternative trends at the Split Festival. Unfortunately, partly due to his own nonchalance and partly as a toll to the “provincial mindset”, Toma’s musical opus is comparably weaker than the value of the songs and the extraordinary concert performances.
His songs mostly belong to “Dalmatian chansons” with distinctive dedication to his region, but they mostly refer to everyday situations and “little people” from the margins, with whom he – as a bohemian and anarchist – got along the best. Sang in his raspy and suggestive voice, his songs shined on the 1980 album Oya Noya with songwriting hits Nevera, Leute moj, Marčelina, Tu-tu auto, vrag ti piz odnija, Za moj raj pitajte mene, confirming Bebic’s role as the artistic enfant terrible fully distanced from the mainstream of the then pop songs of Split Festival. Permanently interesting as the “dishevelled phenomenon” of Split-themed art and a peculiar chanson singer, Toma once was and remained a cult figure not only of Split, but of Croatian music scene as well.
Zlatko Gall - music critic, journalist and essayist
