Background and career
Zdravko Čolić (Serbian Cyrillic: Здравко Чолић, pronounced [zdrǎːv̞.kɔ̝ t͡ʃɔ̝̌ː.lit͡ɕ]; born 30 May 1951) is a Bosnian pop singer who is widely considered one of the greatest vocalists and cultural icons of the former Yugoslavia. He has been compared to Paul McCartney and Tom Jones by music critics and the general public. He has garnered fame in Southeastern Europe for his emotionally expressive tenor voice, fluent stage presence and numerous critically and commercially acclaimed albums and singles. Among his songs, "Ti si mi u krvi" (You're In My Blood), from the eponymous album, is widely considered one of the most popular ballads of ex-Yugoslav music.
Born in Sarajevo, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia to Bosnian Serb parents, police administrator Vladimir Čolić from the Vlahovići village near Ljubinje (Herzegovina) and homemaker Stana Čolić from Trebinje (East Herzegovina), Čolić grew up with a younger brother Dragan. Showing an early interest in sports, the youngster was active as a football goalkeeper in FK Željezničar's youth system, before switching to track and field where he also excelled in the 100 metres and long jump. At one point he ran a 100-meter dash in 11.3 seconds, and continually placed high at various events he entered (finishing just behind future star Nenad Stekić at one of them). Čolić eventually gave up on a career in sports, feeling he lacked the discipline required to compete regularly. Growing up in Sarajevo, Čolić attended the Vladimir Perić Valter elementary school in the Skenderija neighborhood near the adjacent neighborhood of Grbavica where he lived. He also attended music school, studying guitar playing. As a hobby, he took part in various school recitals and also acted in a couple of plays at the Pionirsko pozorište (youth theatre).
From a very young age, Čolić showed an interest in music. With friend Braco Isović, he played guitar at informal and impromptu park gatherings around their neighborhood through which they became known locally as 'Čola i Isa sa Grbavice'. At the time, Čolić was trying to emulate pop schlager music that dominated Yugoslav and Italian festivals. His first love was Milena Mijatović from Belgrade. His first significant public singing experience occurred in 1967 while at the Montenegrin coast for the Yugoslav Republic Day celebrations. Staying in the wooden prefab vacation home his family owned in the coastal community of Baošići, seventeen-year-old Čolić was persuaded by a friend, Nedim Idrizović, to enter an amateur singing competition in nearby Bijela. The teenager won second prize singing "Lady Madonna" by The Beatles. Encouraged by the unexpected success, soon after returning to Sarajevo, Čolić entered his first band—a group called 'Mladi i lijepi'. This participation lasted until he graduated high school in 1969 when he decided to move on to the more established Ambasadori, a band whose two incarnations Čolić would end up staying with for the next two and a half years.
When Čolić joined them, Ambasadori employed an unusual setup: being essentially a military cover band as all the musicians, except for bandleader Slobodan Vujović, were Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) ranked officers. Their repertoire centered around the 1960s rhythm & blues (Chicago, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, etc.) along with obligatory Yugoslav hits of the day and years past, and finally even a few original numbers written by the bandmembers thrown into the mix. Over time, the group started getting more gig offers, which presented a problem since its army part was not available for many of them, and those offers had to be declined. Seeing their opportunities limited by the strange situation, Vujović and Čolić decided to step out and form Novi ambasadori in 1970, bringing in drummer Perica Stojanović, organist Vlado Pravdić, saxophonist Lale Stefanović, and bassist Zlatko Hold. With the almost all-new lineup, the band also expanded its repertoire so that in addition to R&B they now also played covers of Led Zeppelin, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and others. In the summer of 1970, Novi ambasadori scored a month-long gig with Indexi in Dubrovnik, which was their first tour-like experience. Next step was competing at the 1971 Vaš šlager sezone annual festival in Sarajevo where they finished in 7th place with a song "Plačem za tvojim usnama" that songwriter Zdenko Runjić claimed to have composed and officially signed his name under, even though it was a blatant rip-off of The Tremeloes' "Suddenly You Love Me" (which is a cover of Riccardo Del Turco's "Uno tranquillo" ). No one from the festival noticed this plagiarism and the band avoided the controversy. The song was even released on a 7-inch single "Plačem za tvojim usnama" / "Zapjevaj" by Beograd Disk and sold surprisingly well. The performance at Vaš šlager sezone was also significant since it marked the band's first television appearance, exposing them to a much larger audience. One of the people in that TV audience was Kornelije Kovač, an already influential and established figure in Yugoslav music circles, who immediately was intrigued by Čolić's "clean tenor and good stage presence". Čolić was soon offered a "bench role" with Indexi, to fill in for their singer Davorin Popović, and even performed with them a couple of times.
In the meantime, during the summer of 1971, Čolić finally met face to face with Kornelije Kovač who came to see Čolić play in Mostar and invited him to join his band Korni Grupa as a replacement to their departed singer Dado Topić. On 10 September 1971, twenty-year-old Čolić left his hometown and moved to the capital Belgrade to join his new band. However, his stint with Korni grupa ultimately proved to be very short and largely unsuccessful as he never meshed well enough with the rest of the group musically, finding it hard to fit into their progressive rock style. He recorded three tracks with them, "Kukavica, "Gospa Mica gazdarica", and "Pogledaj u nebo", all of which were released on the 7-inch single by PGP-RTB. Track "Gospa Mica gazdarica" managed to create minor controversy due to the slightly risque lyrics written from the perspective of a young man imploring his older female landlord to allow him into her bed—a nod to Čolić's life at the time since he was living away from home in sublet apartments. Due to numerous complaints, the song was taken off radio playlists. Soon, however, Čolić and Kovač agreed that it would be better for Čolić to go solo. Only six months after his arrival to Belgrade, he returned to Sarajevo determined to give his solo career a try.
On 15 April 1972 Čolić's first solo move was taking part in the Vaš šlager sezone competitive festival in Sarajevo. He won the third audience prize as well as the interpretation award with Kemal Monteno written song "Sinoć nisi bila tu" that was originally meant to be sung by Josipa Lisac who opted out at the last moment. Right away, under Kovač's guidance Čolić managed to establish a fair amount of prominence as a solo act—and on 20 May 1972 the two appeared as guests on the very popular TV Belgrade variety show Obraz uz obraz hosted by Milena Dravić and Dragan Nikolić. The same year, Čolić made further appearances at the Split Festival (with song "Stara pjesma"), Priština festival, and Skopje Festival (with song "Moj bol"), before embarking on a tour of Soviet Union together with Indexi, Bisera Veletanlić, Sabahudin Kurt, and Sabina Varešanović.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
