P.S. CRO MUSIC I. ROBIC 2018

During the 1950s he was our connection with the world of pop music. He was our jukebox man: he would sing whatever song you wished to hear! During those years, his records could have been your entire music collection. He recorded 62 large singles (78 rpms!) and three LP records that were – for those rare gramophone owners – a respectable collection. He was also the stronger side of a domestic festival of pop music, 1953 Zagreb Festival (the other, softer side, was Rajka Vali). He was also our first “gasterbeiter“ (migrant worker), also the first pop-singer, unfortunately the only one until now (!) who paved the way to the great world of show business with his golden record entitled Morgen.
            He would reveal his decision not to follow in his father's footsteps, a judge and dignitary in Bjelovar, (Ivo was born in Garešnica located near Bjelovar on January 28th, 1923) in Zagreb when he traded his law studies for night performances and singing on the State Radio Station hoping to catch up to his idol, Tino Rossi, a master of bel canto from Corsica. The popularity of the Independent State of Croatia (the earliest preserved radio recordings dating back to 1944) would help him meet his future wife Marta, but also come to terms with the fact that during the first days following the war, his status of a radio singer would be suspended in the new state and his existence would depend solely on his performances in the night Grill Room at Gradski podrum in Zagreb. Radio Zagreb kept him on the side lines for a while, but then started playing his songs under the name of Ivo Borić until an intervention at the very top of the communist party gave him back his identity. Finally, in 1949, after many years of performing in bars and on the radio and departure of the big brother, Robić, a “microphone singer“, got his foot inside the Jugoton's door that was becoming more and more ambitious. During the next ten years he recorded an entire record collection, from Morgen to the start of his international career at Polydor, and became Jugoton's singing crown jewel.
He composed some of the greatest oldies from the 1950s: Srce, laku noć, Ja ću doć’, Za tobom čeznem, Ne plači, and the greatest hit Samo jednom se ljubi, Nobody came close to the imagined monument of the bard of popular music from the 1950s. With Morgen and a prominent German producer and composer, Bert Kaempfert, Robić made a step into the world where he left a piece of himself, at least in Germany (He released as many as 14 records for Polydor between 1959 and 1966!). You are sure to come across his name in many important global encyclopaedias and numerous books when you research the popular music phenomena.
He was placed on the pedestal of our king of oldies a long time ago. He passed away in a Hospital in Rijeka on March 9th, 2000 after a short illness.Siniša Škarica, musical editor