Meri Cetinić

Meri Cetinić is a Croatian singer, pianist, composer and songwriter of pop music, born on 15 June 1953 in Split, to a family from Blato on the island of Korčula. She went to the Josip Hatze music school and the Teachers' Academy in Split, and grew up listening to blues and gospel singers.

At fourteen she won Raspjevano proljeće in Split with Percy Sledge's "Warm and Tender Love", and at fifteen she joined the Split group CHE on the Hammond organ. At seventeen she toured the Soviet Union as the singer of Delfini. With Slobodan M. Kovačević she then founded the group More, in which she sang, played piano and wrote, and with them she had hits such as "More", "Gdje god da pođeš", "Ti si moj san" and "Samo simpatija". In 1975 "Gdje god da pođeš" won the interpretation award at the Split festival.

She went solo at the end of 1978, working with her brother Ante Cetinić as producer and arranger. Her first album, Meri (1979), went gold, and Ja sam žena (1980), the first she wrote herself, recorded in Arnhem in the Netherlands, was the first Croatian pop album to reach diamond sales. U prolazu (1981) and As (1982) went platinum and Prašina s puta (1983) was named album of the year. With songs by Zdenko Runjić she won at the Split festival year after year, among them "Četri stađuna", the jury's first prize in 1979, and she was named singer of the year across Yugoslavia in 1981 and 1982.

She sang duets with Tedi Spalato ("Konoba"), Oliver Dragojević ("Sunce mog života") and Tomislav Ivčić ("Gorka rijeka"), and in the early 1990s gave charity concerts abroad with Tomislav Ivčić and Đani Maršan, and in 1991 toured Australia for a month with Dražen Žanko. The album Putovanja (1998) brought "Samo tuga ostaje", and her live album Malo mora na mom dlanu, recorded in Split's Croatian National Theatre, won the Porin for best pop album of 2002.

Back in Split, she made the jazz album Tiramola (2006) with Black Coffee, the ethno album Virno srce (2009) with Korčula klapas, and Dozvoli mi (2014) with her daughter Ivana Burić. She has won several awards at the Dalmatian chanson festival in Šibenik, and in 2025 she received the Porin for lifetime achievement. Meri Cetinić still lives in Split.