Adi Smolar

Adi Smolar is a Slovenian singer-songwriter, poet and children's author, born on 25 March 1959 in Slovenj Gradec. Best known for his own songs and lyrics, sung to his guitar, he became widely known on the Slovenian music scene in the 1990s.

He grew up in a musical family in Carinthia: his father, also called Adi, played trumpet in the ensemble Fantje treh dolin. As a boy he played clarinet and accordion and sang in choirs. He went to primary school in Vuzenica and to the gymnasium in Ravne na Koroškem, and at eighteen he took up the guitar, although playing it was forbidden at home. In 1978 he enrolled in Slovene and comparative literature at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, but never graduated. As he later put it, he did not get a degree, but he did learn to play the guitar.

After about two years of writing songs, he gave his first solo concert in Cerknica in 1981. He played live for some eight years before releasing his first album, Naš svet se pa vrti, in 1989, which was also the title of his first collection of poems. Songs such as "Gremo na Povšetovo", "Saj se nikamor ne mudi" and "Grobar" became student anthems.

In 1992, at the age of 33, he lost his job and began to live from his music. He went to the label Helidon, and the live album No ja, pa kaj... followed in 1993. For about ten years he then released an album a year: Neprilagojen (1994) and Bognedaj da bi crknu televizor (1995) with his band Leteči potepuhi, then Saj te prime – pa te mine (1996), Jaz sem nor (1997), Je treba delat (1999), Jaz ne grem v šolo (2000), Ne se bat' (2001) and the live album Koncert (2002).

Later albums include Vse je krasno (2004), Brez dlake na jeziku (2008), Se počasi daleč pride (2011) with the group Mestni postopači, and Prav zdaj (2018). By his sixtieth birthday he counted fifteen albums and some two hundred songs. In 2008 he received the Ježek Award, and he has also won a Viktor.

Smolar also writes for children. His first children's book, Pujsa in Andrej Migec, came out in 1996, followed by picture books such as Zgodba o rolici papirja (2012) and Jaz ne grem v šolo (2014). He has long supported Kantfest in Ruše, a festival for young singer-songwriters.