Related articles
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
Current AffairsNew Film Canon to aid teaching of film aesthetics and film history at Czech schools
Professionals in the Czech film industry have put together a new Film Canon
of both domestic and international productions to be used as a teaching aid
in Czech elementary and secondary schools. The choice of top films includes
both Czech and world classics from Juraj Herz’s Spalovač Mrtvol (The
Cremator) to Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. 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 OneMusician Robert Křesťan on bluegrass, Bob Dylan, and playing before Barack Obama
Czech bluegrass has a long tradition going back to the 1960s but it took
several more decades before it was acknowledged in the land of its origin,
the United States. Our guest in this edition of One on One is Robert
Křesťan, the banjoist, lead singer and the founder of a bluegrass
legend,
the band Druhá Tráva, formed in the early 1990s. Their latest album
Dylanovky, features songs by Bob Dylan translated into Czech by Robert
Křesťan, and he and his band set the scene before the public speech of
the US President, Barack Obama at Prague Castle earlier this month. 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
PanoramaSing when you’re tramping - the art of the Czech wandering song
This song might sound like something out of a Western, but it is every bit
as Czech as Dvořák or Smetana. 'Sbohem kapitáne můj' is one of the
hundreds of melodies to form part of the Czech tramping songbook. Such
songs have, for the last 90 years, been providing the soundtrack to a
particularly Czech pastime – tramping. To an untrained eye, tramping
consists of weekends spent living rough in the forest, and weekdays meeting
with kindred spirits and singing in the pub. But to those initiated,
tramping means much more – it's a way of life. At a fortnightly tramping
sing-along, the country's self-proclaimed oldest active tramp, Vladimír
Horák, let me in on a bit of the secret:
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
+1
