Fadil Toskić

Fadil Toskić was a singer from Sarajevo, a festival name of Bosnian schlager in the late 1970s and early 1980s who later found a second audience with folk songs. He was born on 25 September 1949; as a boy he came to Sarajevo with his parents, three brothers and a sister from Podgorica. His father Rifat was a well-known barber and taught him the trade, and Fadil remained a sought-after show-business hairdresser, with many singers from across Yugoslavia among his clients.

He started in the early 1970s with the rock group Ajani, and in 1974 he was the singer of the first line-up of Teška industrija, but left within a year to go solo. His first solo appearance was at the Prvi aplauz festival in Banja Luka in 1975 with "Ti kažeš". In 1977 Jugoton released his debut single, "Pođi pravo" with "Riječi sreće", and "Pođi pravo" won the audience award at Vaš šlager sezone in Sarajevo. A year later "Zapalio sam plamen" won the festival and its first audience prize, and "Buro ljubavi, vladaj!" brought him the jury award for interpretation and arrangement at the Opatija festival; he also sang at the Split festival.

In 1979 he recorded his first LP, Bilo bi ludo, in London: a pop-rock album with Slobodan "Bodo" Kovačević on electric guitar and Kornelije "Bata" Kovač on piano and synthesizer, and songs by writers such as Aleksandar Korać, Ismet Arnautalić, Đorđe Novković and Arsen Dedić. In 1980 he was back at Vaš šlager sezone with "Pogodila me Amorova strijela". The 1985 album Noćne igre was written by Sarajevo pop-rock veterans Slobodan Vujović, Bodo Kovačević and Sead Lipovača, with Mladen Vojičić Tifa and Zuzi Zu among the backing singers.

The turning point came with Sjetit ćeš se mene (1990), on which he sang folk songs. It holds his best-remembered hits: "Jasmina", "Sve će ti uzeti oni", "Sjetit ćeš se mene" and "Mirišeš na divlje jagode", which he composed himself, and Ranko Boban's "Puče grom u srcu mom", "Ružo moja" and "Zauvijek se kući spremam", as well as "Crno vino, plave oči". Further albums followed: Lagala si, lagala (1993), Bona ne bila (1996) and Još sam tu (2001).

Generations of Sarajevans also remember him from the dance evenings at Skenderija, FIS and the club Sloga, and his salon was a meeting place for the city's musicians. He fell ill with lung cancer in 2005 and died in Sarajevo on 10 January 2006.