Leb i Sol

Leb i Sol is a band from Skopje, North Macedonia, and one of the most important acts of the Yugoslav rock scene. It was formed on 1 January 1976 by guitarist Vlatko Stefanovski, bassist Bodan Arsovski and keyboard player Nikola Dimuševski, and its name, Bread and Salt, comes from the traditional welcome in which guests were offered home-baked bread and salt. Their music blends rock, jazz fusion and Macedonian folk music, with odd meters such as 5/4 and 7/8, and Stefanovski became known far beyond the band as a guitar virtuoso.

In 1977 they played outside Macedonia for the first time, won an award at the Subotica festival, appeared at the BOOM festival in Novi Sad and signed with PGP-RTB, which released their debut, Leb i sol, that year. Leb i sol 2 followed in 1978, when "Aber dojde Donke" won an award at the Opatija festival and the readers of Džuboks voted them band of the year. Next came Ručni rad (1979), Beskonačno (1981), Sledovanje, with the hit "Nosim tvoj žig", and the double live album Akustična trauma (1982). In the summer of 1981 they spent about two and a half months touring the United States with the KPGT theatre.

Garabet Tavitjan played drums in several spells, with Dragoljub Đuričić taking over in 1981, and Kiril Džajkovski played keyboards on Kao kakao (1987) and Putujemo (1989). The 1980s brought Kalabalak (1983), with "Bistra voda", Tangenta (1984), with "Kontakt je skup", Zvučni zid (1986), with their version of the traditional "Jovano, Jovanke", and Putujemo, with the big hit "Čukni vo drvo". Live in New York (1991) was recorded at CBGB.

The double compilation Antologija (1995) included "Uči me, majko, karaj me". The band played its last concert on 13 December 1995 in Thessaloniki and split, its members going on to solo careers. In April 2006 Stefanovski, Arsovski, Tavitjan and Dimuševski reunited for a thirtieth-anniversary tour across the former Yugoslavia. After Stefanovski left, a new line-up released I taka nataka in 2008, with Dado Topić as a guest on two songs.

In the Rock Express Top 100 Yugoslav Rock Songs of All Times, a poll of more than 3,400 readers, 120 journalists and critics and about 100 musicians that the magazine published in 2000, "Uči me, majko, karaj me" was ranked 20th, "Jovano, Jovanke" 45th and "Bistra voda" 79th.