Mladen Grdović

Mladen Grdović is a Croatian singer and composer of pop and entertainment music, born on 28 July 1958 in Zadar. He went to school there, and it was in Zadar that he began singing. His father gave him a guitar when he was six. At fifteen he founded the band Dalmati, which played Italian canzone, evergreens and rock hits, songs by The Rolling Stones among them, and in the 1970s he played in the Zadar rock band Šaci glazbe.

His first studio album, Doviđenja, came out in 1990, and three years later Nedostaješ mi ti gave him a hit with its title song. The albums kept coming: Tu je moj dom (1994), Nije u šoldima sve (1996, with Bepo Matešić), Ako odeš ti (1996), Vitar nek puše (1999), Kada se ljubav u vino pretvori (2000), I za dušu i za tilo (2002), Evo mene moji ljudi (2003), E, da mi je vratit vrime (2006), Da te nima (2008), Dobro jutro ti, more (2009), Za tebe živim ja (2012), Samo more to zna (2014) and Za šaku ljubavi (2024).

He writes many of his own songs, both music and lyrics, and has taken part in some forty festivals in Croatia alone, among them Melodije Jadrana, Zadarfest, the Croatian Radio Festival, Dora and the Split festival, winning a number of them. His albums have sold a total of 2.5 million copies. With Tomislav Ivčić he performs as Duo Pegla, whose cassette reportedly sold 400,000 copies.

He has worked with the songwriters Đorđe Novković, Nenad Ninčević, Stipica Kalogjera and Remi Kazinoti, and recorded duets with Vinko Coce, Jasmin Stavros, Duško Lokin, Mate Bulić, Mejaši and klapa Maestral. Among his best-known songs are "Nije u šoldima sve", "Evo mene moji ljudi", "Dalmatinac sam", "Sve za ljubav", "Tu je moj dom" and "Bolje živim nego ministar".

In the autumn of 2024 Mladen Grdović marked 45 years in music with the tour Evo mene moji ljudi, which opened in Split on 5 October and went on to Osijek, Požega, Karlovac, Rijeka, Čakovec and Zagreb. He lives in Zadar and supports Hajduk Split.