Davorin Popović

Davorin Popović was a singer from Sarajevo and, for almost four decades, the voice of Indexi, the band that founded what is called the Sarajevo pop-rock school. He was born in Sarajevo on 23 September 1946 into a Croat family; his father Stjepan was an office clerk and his mother Tereza a dentist. Family and friends called him Davor or Dačo, and to the public he was simply "Pjevač", the Singer.

Before music took over he was a serious basketball player. He was a guard and captain of Mlada Bosna, the club later known as Željezničar, played more than 500 matches and stopped competing in 1968. He studied at the Faculty of Political Science in Sarajevo, and his lifelong friendship with the basketball star Mirza Delibašić became part of the city's bohemian legend.

His first band in high school was called Pauci, and he went on to sing with Lutalice before joining Indexi at the end of 1964. He stayed with them until the band ended in 2001. With Indexi he took part in the Yugoslav Eurovision selection of 1967, and in the 1980s he often appeared with Mostarske kiše, a children's vocal group led by the poet Mišo Marić.

Alongside the band he recorded under his own name between 1975 and 1996, usually backed by Indexi themselves, so many credits read "Davorin and Indexi". His solo debut, Svaka je ljubav ista (osim one prave), released by Diskoton, was in fact the first studio album of entirely new songs the group recorded together; it came out under his name because Indexi were busy with Modra rijeka. The single "Ja sam uvijek htio ljudima da dam" with "Crveno svjetlo" followed on PGP RTB in 1976, and the album S tobom dijelim sve in 1984. Songs often thought of as Indexi classics, such as "I pad je let" and "U tebi se žena rađa", were released as his solo work. He also sang "Žute dunje" for the film Kuduz.

In 1995, during the siege of Sarajevo, he represented Bosnia and Herzegovina at the Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin with "Dvadeset prvi vijek" (21st Century) and finished 19th of 23. Two years earlier he had sung three songs at the country's first independent selection for the contest. With Indexi he received the city of Sarajevo's 6 April Award.

Davorin Popović died of pancreatic cancer in Sarajevo on 18 June 2001, aged 54, and was buried in the Alley of Greats at Bare cemetery, next to Indexi guitarist Slobodan "Bodo" Kovačević and Mirza Delibašić. A Bosnian music award founded in 2002 was first named Davorin in his honour and later renamed the Indexi award at his widow's request, and a Sarajevo basketball tournament carries his nickname, Dačo.