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Sunday Music ShowPavel Bobek - a Czech country legend
In this edition of Sunday Music Show, we listen to some of the big hits of
Pavel Bobek - one of the country's most popular country and rock'n roll
singers. More
SpecialPavel Bobek – Part 2
For a lot of Czechs, Pavel Bobek is THE voice of country pop, thanks to his
hugely popular Czech-language versions of hits by U.S. singers like John
Denver and Kris Kristofferson. He is also a trained architect, and was a
close friend of Jan Kaplický, who died in 2009 after a long and fruitless
struggle to have one of his plans realised in Prague. In this, the second
part of a two-part interview, Pavel Bobek speaks about Kaplický and
aspects of his own career. But first he discusses his love of Johnny Cash,
whose songs he recorded on his most recent LP. More
SpecialPavel Bobek – Part 1
Pavel Bobek is one of the greats of Czech popular music, best known for his
Czech versions of songs by American artists like Kris Kristofferson, Bob
Dylan, and his long-time hero Johnny Cash. A trained architect, he started
out in the Czechoslovak bigbít (rock’n’roll) scene of the late 1950s
and early 1960s, singing with an early version of the band Olympic before
becoming a member of the Semafor theatre, one of the country’s most
vibrant cultural institutions in the Communist era. More
ArtsNew Czech Fables – From the culture of tramping, to children’s toys, to compulsory military service
Last week the Czech National Museum launched a new exhibition called New
Czech Fables (or New Czech Myths) at the Kinský summer palace, located at
the edge of Prague’s Petřín Hill. The show examines urban legends,
sayings, social rituals and counter-culture movements in the former
Czechoslovakia as well as present-day Czech Republic. In this week’s
Arts, Radio Prague takes a closer look. More
Music ExpressPavel Bobek – veteran voice of Czech country pop
In this edition of Music Express we meet a veteran of the Czech pop and
country scenes, Pavel Bobek. He was a member of the renowned Semafor
theatre group for two and a half decades, had numerous hits with Czech
versions of US country hits, and even got to perform with his life-long
idol Johnny Cash. More
Current AffairsMusic legend Waldemar Matuška dies at 76
One of the most memorable voices of 20th century Czech pop music has fallen
silent. The singer and actor Waldemar Matuška, aged 76, died in his
Florida home on Saturday. In a career spanning over four decades, he
recorded some 30 albums and starred in more than 20 films.
More
One on OneRuth Ellen Gruber, an expert on Jewish heritage and Europe’s country music
For four decades, the countries trapped behind the Iron Curtain attracted
only a few travellers from the West. Our guest in this week’s edition of
One on One is the American writer, scholar and photographer Ruth Ellen
Gruber, whose reporting career brought her to the communist block in the
1970s. She spent time in Belgrade and Warsaw, among other places, and
after
the fall of communism, she stayed in Europe and became a leading scholar
on
eastern European Jewish heritage – and the region’s country music. More
MailboxMailbox
Today in Mailbox: Radio Prague monthly competition prizes; how to find
programmes on our website; a recent poll on “what Czechs feel most
ashamed of”. Listeners quoted: S. J. Agboola, Francesco Reda, Christopher
Larkosh, Lynda Marie Hauptman.
More
Letter from PragueForays into the Brno line-dancing scene
Let me tell you a story about how once upon a time, I ran away with a
Moravian country dance troupe. I appreciate that my love of all things
Czech and country is getting beyond a joke, as several recent articles are
testament to, but this is quite possibly where it all began...
More
PanoramaOut in the cold world and far away from home: Bluegrass music in the Czech Republic
Bluegrass originates from the Appalachian region of the United States of
America, and is a type of music as American as apple pie. But bluegrass
enjoys a long and rich history in the Czech Republic too. Lee Bidgood is an
ethnomusicologist at the University of Virginia - the cradle of bluegrass.
For the past five years, he’s been looking at the way this music is
performed in the Czech Republic:
More
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