Čudežna polja

Čudežna polja, known to fans as Čudežniki, is a Slovenian band from Maribor. Its roots go back to 1970, when Gorazd Elvič and Rudi Jazbec started a school band at the II. gimnazija in Maribor. In 1972 the line-up that largely lasts to this day came together, with Slavc Kovačič, Zdenko Zagorac and drummer Andrej Modrijan, later replaced by Danilo Karba. The name comes from Fields of Wonder, a poetry collection by Langston Hughes. That same year they won the Zagreb '72 rock festival.

In 1974 PGP RTB released their first single, with the hits "Solze" and "Draga, ti si moja sreča", the first single by a Slovenian rock band sung in Slovenian. Jugoton released the next successful single, "Hej, heja, hej", soon after. They started with blues and rock, became a hotel band playing old hits in the disco years, and in the 1980s and 1990s turned to pop, marked by their many-voiced harmonies; the Beatles were their great influence, and their Beatles show won first prize at a festival in Graz.

Their biggest hit is "Poštar zvoni samo dvakrat"; "Anamarie", which sold 117,000 records, and "Boogie dama" are just as well known, from more than 140 songs of their own. In 1991 they tried the Austrian market with the German-language "Marie Marie". Over their career they released two singles and eleven LPs, cassettes and CDs, six of them gold and five silver, among them Bye, Bye Barbara (1985) and Cvetje v jeseni (1986).

They played all the big festivals of the former Yugoslavia and Slovenia, from Opatija and Split to Slovenska popevka and seven editions of Melodije morja in sonca, where they won the expert jury's award for best debut in 1982 with "Spomin je ostal namesto rož". At EMA, "Nekdo igra klavir" placed sixth in 1993. In the early 1990s Kovačič and Elvič also became the children's duo Spidi in Gogi, with their own TV show. After a quieter period from 2003 the band played a big concert of legends in Hala Tivoli in February 2010 and has been performing and recording again since.