Gori Ussi Winnetou

Gori Ussi Winnetou is an informal cabaret-rock group from Pula, born in 1986 within the multimedia art project Beesida eli sida. Its alter ego and almost its only permanent member is singer and bassist Franci Blašković. Most often he is joined by Gianfranco Macan on backing vocals and by his wife and co-author Arinka Šegando on flute, keyboards and backing vocals, and some thirty musicians from Pula and Rijeka, Alfredo Poropat among them, have passed through the group.

The group's work is marked by humour, parody and storytelling, and by a mix of languages, registers and genres. Writers such as Drago Orlić, Milan Rakovac and Budimir Žižović wrote for it. The first big success came in 1986 with a setting of Daniel Načinović's poem "Addio Pola", and the songs "Mens sana in malvasia istriana", the portraits "Điđi Anarhišta" and "Nikoleto", and the memories "Česta ud mora" and "Rock in Pula all'Uljanik dancing" followed. Recurring themes are times gone by, Pula as an imperial port, wine and the Mediterranean.

The most important partners of Franci and the group were KUD Idijoti, with whom they made the joint album Istra ti materina (1995), and the writers of the FAK literary movement, with whom they released Merack za FAK (2002). From 2005, together with the group Partijska ćelija Opatija, Gori Ussi Winnetou set off on a frantic run of an album a month: twelve albums in 2005, eight in 2006, nine in 2007 and ten in 2008.

After a concert in Volosko in January 2009 Franci disbanded the group and recorded under other names until 2012, among them Fonja Big Bend and Rostiglio. For years he also worked with Marin Alvir, later the founder of the equally prolific Marinada. In 2016, after a four-year break, he went back to the original name. The playlist holds the newest albums, Vamos a bajlar el balo dela prostata, Kino Partizan and Istrijanke, with Istrian songs such as "Veli Jože" and "Štrige i štriguni".