Šaban Šaulić

Šaban Šaulić was a Serbian and Yugoslav folk singer, known for his baritone voice and called the "King of Folk Music". He was born on 6 September 1951 in Šabac to Bosniak parents, Huso Šaulić and Ilduza, née Demirović, and spent his childhood in his mother's town, Bijeljina. Football came first, until in the mid-1960s his uncle Alija had him sing in a local kafana.

In 1969, at eighteen, he recorded his first single, "Dajte mi utjehu", for PGP-RTB, and it was an instant hit. He moved to Belgrade and by the mid-1970s was a household name, his songs requested in every kafana. Until 1976 his songs were written by Buca Jovanović; after that he composed many of his own hits, often to lyrics by Rade Vučković. Over his career he released 22 singles and more than thirty albums, from Bio sam pijanac (1972), Dođi da ostarimo zajedno (1978) and Dva galeba bela (1979) to Kafanska noć (1985) and Milicu Stojan voleo (2008). Album 2004 added two new songs, "Postelja" and "Sa njom sve".

In 1974 he married Gordana Dragaš, and "Gordana" (1985) was dedicated to her after a brief separation. They had three children, Mihajlo, Sanela and the singer Ilda, and he also had an older son, Robert. He sang duets with Snežana Đurišić, among them "Šmeker" (1996) and "Hej, Srbijo" (2009), appeared in the film Sok od šljiva (1981), and was a judge on Zvezde Granda (2013-2016) and Pinkove zvezde (2016-2017).

He gave a solo concert at Sava Centar on 25 November 2011 and two more there in March 2013, and marked fifty years on stage at the Belgrade Arena on 6 October 2018, the year he received a lifetime achievement award from the Association of Entertainment and Music Artists of Serbia.

Šaban Šaulić died on 17 February 2019 in Germany, on the motorway between Bielefeld and Gütersloh, after a concert in Bielefeld. The car he was travelling in, driven by his keyboardist Mirsad Kerić, was hit from behind by a drunk, unlicensed driver, and both men died. He was buried on 22 February 2019 in the Alley of Distinguished Citizens at Belgrade's New Cemetery. In 2020 Serbia awarded him the Golden Medal for Merits, and in 2022 a monument to him was unveiled in Šabac.