Samo Budna

Samo Budna is a Slovenian singer-songwriter and musician from Ljutomer. He was born on 26 April 1975 in Murska Sobota, and Ljutomer is his home town, where he celebrated twenty-five years of making music with a big concert in 2016. That is why he is on Muzika-Balkan under Slovenia. He sings in Slovenian, and much of his work grows out of the folk music of Prekmurje.

He was born into a musical family: his mother teaches violin and guitar. At the Slavko Osterc music school in Ljutomer he learned violin, guitar and piano, and he started out as violinist and singer in the ethno group Marko banda, founded in 1990 as the junior band of the Kociper-Baranja banda. With them he recorded No. 1 in 1997 and songs for Daleč je, a 1999 album of Prekmurje poetry set to music. He left after fourteen years but still stands in for their violinist now and then.

In 1995 he founded the ethno-rock band Posodi mi jürja with the accordionist Rihard Zadravec. They made two albums of covers, in 1997 and 1999, and the album of their own songs Ugasnite luči in 2003, all written by Budna, who played violin and guitar and sang. He is also the violinist of the Beltinška banda, which Vlado Kreslin invited him to join after the death of Janči Kociper in 1998, and he founded and mentors the young Mlada beltinška banda.

He went solo in 2008 with a new backing band. His first album, Manj je več, came out in 2009 with "Festival kiča", "Komu boš rekla" and the title song, and the second, Za nazaj in za naprej, produced by Jani Hace, followed in 2015. The Prekmurje writer Feri Lainšček wrote the words for several songs, among them "Sanje so večne", "Zate nocoj" and "Sončna hiša". With "Sončna hiša" he sang at Slovenska popevka 2011 and won the award for a promising young author or performer.

At his anniversary concert in Ljutomer on 9 April 2016 his guests were Kreslin, Hamo of Hamo & Tribute 2 Love and Rudi Bučar, and in May that year he played on the radio show Izštekani. He performs as Samo Budna & Band, with Kristjan Majcen, Davor Klarič, Rok Škrlj and Jože Zadravec. The playlist gathers his solo songs, from "Sončna hiša" to "Prijatel".