Miroslav Ilić

Miroslav Ilić is a Serbian folk and pop-folk singer, born on 10 December 1950 in Mrčajevci near Čačak and known as the "Nightingale from Mrčajevci". He went to the gymnasium in Čačak and later studied electrical engineering in Skopje. His songs often draw on the spirit of his native Šumadija.

He made his recording debut while still at school, with the 1965 single "Poslušajte pesmu moju", and came to prominence in 1972 with "Voleo sam devojku iz grada", written by the poet Dobrica Erić and the composer Obren Pjevović for the Diskos label of Aleksandrovac. At the 1973 Ilidža festival "Zora zori, dan se zabijelio" won awards for composition, arrangement and interpretation. His first album, Ovom te pesmom pozdravljam, followed in 1973, and the LP Sreli smo se, bilo je to davno (1979) for PGP RTB was a big success.

He then worked with the composers Dragan Aleksandrić and Predrag Vuković Vukas and the lyricist Radmila Todorović Babić, and through the 1980s he was a regular at the Hit parada, with "Tako mi nedostaješ", "Pozdravi je, pozdravi", "Jesen sedamdeset i neke" and more. His 1982 album Shvatio sam, ne mogu bez tebe is reported to have sold 900,000 copies, and his total sales in Yugoslavia exceed eight million records. Under the manager Raka Đokić he toured with Lepa Brena, and in 1985 the two released the mini-album Jedan dan života. In 1981 he acted in the film Sok od šljiva.

Albums kept coming: Tebi (1986), Lažu da vreme leči sve (1989), Čuvajte mi pesme (1998), Eto mene (2004), Dajem reč (2005) and Volim te neizlečivo (2014). His December concerts at the Sava Centar became a Belgrade tradition, and in December 2022 he marked fifty years in music with two concerts at the Belgrade Arena. From 2014 to 2016 he was a judge on Pinkove zvezde.

He received the Serbian estrada-music award in 2016, its lifetime achievement award in 2018 and the Zlatna bubamara lifetime award in Skopje in 2023. His best-known songs include "Devojka iz grada", "Moravsko predvečerje", "Vino točim, a vino ne pijem", "Pozdravi je, pozdravi", "Šumadijo", "Jesen sedamdeset i neke" and "Polomiću čaše od kristala".