Ibrica Jusić

Ibrica Jusić (Ibrahim Jusić, born on 15 December 1944 in Dubrovnik) is a Croatian singer-songwriter and one of the great names of Croatian chanson. His songs weave together Croatian, French and Italian influences, and over the years he has also sung folk songs and Bosnian sevdalinka. He grew up in a family of seven children, listening to sevdalinka and Italian canzone.

His older brother Đelo Jusić, leader of the Dubrovački trubaduri, taught him to play the guitar. After singing chansons around Dubrovnik he began his professional career in Zagreb in 1965 at the invitation of the composer Pero Gotovac. He won the Zagreb Festival three years running: with "Celuloidni pajac" in 1968, "Osobenjak" in 1969 and "Mačka" in 1970. In 1969 he also recorded "To su djeca" with the Slovenian singer Majda Sepe.

Finding Zagreb too small, he spent three years singing in the cabarets of Paris, coming home each summer for open-air concerts on the steps of the Dominican monastery in Dubrovnik and for the Dubrovnik Summer Festival. In the 1970s came the albums Skaline od sudbine (1975), Nostromo (1976) and Emina (1977), with his version of the sevdalinka "Emina", and songs such as "Dobro jutro, Margareta" and "Jubi san vašu ćer". In 1975 he was one of the first to give a solo concert in Zagreb's Lisinski hall, and he has sung at the Sydney Opera House and Carnegie Hall.

The symphonic album Ibrica (1981), made with his brother, brought "Šalom Sara" and "U svakom slučaju te volim". He appeared on the French TV show Le Grand Échiquier, recorded the French-language album La vie (1985), and spent the late 1980s in Sweden, which inspired Hodaju ljudi (1988). Back in Croatia he released the live album Dan prije (1998), Hazarder (2001), twelve Leonard Cohen songs in translation, and the sevdalinka albums Amanet (2003) and Amanet 2 (2008).

In 2004 he was the first Croatian singer officially invited to the Montreux Jazz Festival, and between 2004 and 2008 he sang at Dora five times, coming fifth in 2004 with "Još samo ovaj put". He has set to music poems by Luko Paljetak, Dobriša Cesarić, Aleksa Šantić and Desanka Maksimović, and he marked 45 years on stage in 2009 with the concert series Od Šekspira do sevdaha.