Boro Drljača

Borislav "Boro" Drljača was a Serbian folk singer from Bosanska Krajina and one of the best-known Yugoslav folk singers, honoured with a lifetime achievement award for his work. He was born on 29 August 1941 in the village of Donja Suvaja near Bosanska Krupa, in today's Bosnia and Herzegovina. His father Branko was an economist and a guitarist; his mother Stoja died before he was two. After primary school in Donja Suvaja he went to an uncle in Bačka Topola, finished agricultural school there and moved to Belgrade to study agronomy.

He recorded more than four hundred songs. His first single, "Ne znam mlađan gdje ću pre", came out in 1967, followed by "Za ljubav tvoju" (1969), "Ti si sve što želim" (1970), "Sarajevo divno mjesto" (1973), "Krajišnici gdje ćemo na prelo" (1974) and "Kad zapjeva grupa Krajišnika" (1975). Among his many albums are Pjevaj mi, pjevaj sokole (1978), Čovjek sam iz naroda (1985), Alal vera majstore (1988), Ko te uze zlato moje (1990), Stari vuk (2004) and Brbljivica (2007).

Festivals were a big part of his career. At the Beogradski sabor he sang "Pozdravljam te" in 1970 and "Sve za ljubav ja sam dao" in 1971, at Ilidža "Ljubav je radost najveća" (1970) and "Prijo moja kako ćemo" (1980), and at the Yugoslav festival in Paris in 1975 "Nas dvoje smo srećni". In later years he was a regular at Moravski biseri, singing "Jao mala, šta nam radiš" (2001) and "Supermeni" (2008) with Era Ojdanić, and in 2014 he won the interpretation award there with "Neka tebi bude dobro".

His best-known songs include "Stari vuk", "Ne namiguj na me tuđa ženo" and "Plači, mala, plači". He sang for audiences across Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia, appeared on the reality shows Veliki Brat VIP (2010) and Parovi (2015), and late in life became the subject of many popular internet memes.

Boro Drljača died on 11 October 2020 in his flat in New Belgrade, aged 79. The playlist here is his 1980 album Stare dobre pesme, with songs such as "Banja Luko i ta tvoja sela", "Mala moja iz Bosanske Krupe", "Oj Prijedore ti si pun sevdaha" and "U lijepom starom gradu Višegradu".