Zvonko Bogdan

Zvonko Bogdan, born Zvonimir Bogdan on 5 January 1942 in Sombor, is a singer of traditional and original tamburica songs from a Bunjevac family. He spent his childhood on the farm of his maternal grandfather, Stipan Kukuruzar, while his other grandfather, Franja, was a coachman and a tamburica player. Besides singing he is a composer, a painter, a winemaker with his own winery at Palić and a harness racer, and he has lived in Subotica since 1980.

He acted briefly at the Sombor theatre and at nineteen moved to Belgrade to enter the drama academy, but to earn a living he began singing in Belgrade kafanas, and that became his career. The Union hotel, a meeting place for journalists and bohemians, helped make his name, and he sang there for almost 30 years. His first song of his own, "Svake noći tebi pevam", was recorded on 3 December 1968, and in 1971 he recorded "Ej, salaši na severu Bačke", his most famous song. From 1972 he performed with Janika Balaž's orchestra at Petrovaradin Fortress.

His albums include "Biseri narodne muzike" with Janika Balaž's orchestra, "Zvonko Bogdan i orkestar Šandora Lakatoša" (1973), "Što se bore misli moje" (1976), "Pesme i pesnici" (1984), "Legolas" (1984), "Život teče u laganom ritmu" (2001), "Rariteti" (2003), "Panonija i ja" (2005), "Tko te ima, taj te nema" (2007) and "Godine su mnoge prošle" (2008). He sang at Beogradsko proleće in 1976 and Hit parada in 1983, and sings some songs in Hungarian and Romani.

During the wars of the 1990s he largely stopped performing in public, citing piracy and a lack of motivation. He returned with a concert at the EXIT festival in Novi Sad in 2004, and in May 2003 he had won the Hand of Freedom award at Brodfest for "Od Konavala pa do Zagore". On 24 November 2013 he marked 45 years on stage at Sava Centar in Belgrade. Croatian acts such as Zlatni Dukati, whose 1994 album "Starogradska pjesmarica" holds many of his songs, and Krunoslav Kićo Slabinac have recorded his songs.

He is one of Vojvodina's most successful harness drivers and in 2001 won the Croatian Harness Race Derby at the Zagreb Hippodrome. Zvonko Bogdan's best-known songs include "Ej, salaši na severu Bačke", "Osam tamburaša s Petrovaradina", "Bunjevačko prelo", "U tem Somboru", "Govori se da me varaš", "Ne vredi plakati", "Fijaker stari" and "Svirci moji".