Zlatko Pejaković

Zlatko Pejaković is a Croatian pop singer, born on 29 August 1950 in Osijek to Mihael and Marija Pejaković, Bosnian Croats from Travnik. Over a career of more than five decades he has released some thirty albums, working with writers such as Zrinko Tutić, Tonči Huljić, Marina Tucaković and Kornelije Kovač.

He began in 1967 with the Osijek groups Lavine, Čarobnjaci and Dinamiti, without recording. That year he wrote the words and music of "Čerge", which he recorded in 1970 as the singer of the Zagreb group Zlatni akordi; it became a hit across Yugoslavia, even though Radio Zagreb branded it kitsch. In 1971 he co-founded the progressive rock group Had in Osijek.

Josip Boček then invited him to replace Zdravko Čolić in Korni Grupa, and he moved to Belgrade, where he lived until the break-up of Yugoslavia. Many critics, Kornelije Kovač among them, consider his years the band's most fruitful. Korni Grupa released their first album in 1972 and finished 12th at Eurovision 1974 with "Moja generacija", and in Belgrade he also played Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar at Atelje 212.

After the band ended, Kovač wrote his first solo hit, "Ove noći jedna žena mirno spava" (1975). His first album, Lice, came out in 1976, and hits such as "Kad jednom zaželiš", "Uspomene, uspomene", "Ćao i piši mi" and "Lagala je da me voli", from Zagrebfest 1977, followed. In 1979 he won the Split festival with "Ljetu je mome kraj", and he sang there regularly for about a decade, in 1981 with the klapa Lučica on "Cvita, cvita, cvite moj". Trn (1981) was mostly rock, with new versions of his Korni Grupa songs and of "Jedna žena", which Dado Topić had sung with the band.

After a pause, his 1989 comeback album, mostly written by Tonči Huljić, turned him towards Dalmatian pop, with "Kad te napuste svi" and "Tamo gdje grožđe zri". Through the 1990s and 2000s came a string of albums, including Zlatko Pejaković '93 and the tambura record Tamburicu ja, mandolinu ti (1993). Zlatko 2000 sold more than 25,000 copies in its first ten days and went gold. Later he recorded traditional songs from Slavonia, Podravina and Lika, and in 2018 he formed the band Tri Mušketira with Jasmin Stavros and Mladen Grdović.