Karel Gott
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Karel Gott (born July 14, 1939) has been arguably the most successful Czech singer (crooner) between the 1960s and 2005.
Born in Western Bohemian town Plzen. Gott was later trained to be mechanic while performing as an amateur singer in various Prague pubs of the late 1950s. In 1960, he started to study singing at the Prague conservatoire, his first short record Mesíční řeka (a Czech version of Henry Mancini's "Moon River") being issued in 1962. Since 1963 Gott had swiftly occupied the leading position on the Czechoslovak pop scene, while his first international successes followed his five months stay in Las Vegas. In 1969, Gott won the music festival in Rio de Janeiro with composer Karel Svoboda's most transparent hit Lady Carneval. Between 1965 when his first LP Zpívá Karel Gott (Karel Gott Singing) was published and the mid 1990s, 50 LP's of Gott were published by Czech publishing house Supraphon, making him the best selling performer in Czech musical business, while there have been some 80 records published abroad, most of them under Polydor. In the late 1960s, Gott started his career in german speaking countries as well, where his name still enjoys a very good sound").
Gott_Polydor.jpg
During his German stay in 1971, Gott expressed his intention not to return back to Soviet occupied Czechoslovakia and did not change his mind until he was addressed a private letter signed by the first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Gustáv Husák. Until the present day, the exact content of this letter is not known, yet it is widely believed that Husák was convincing the singer in an emotional way to come home by pointing to Gott's importance for easing popular conformity with the new occupation regime.
Karel Gott's lyrical tenor, his extraordinary voice dispositions together with the singer's broad genre skills make Gott the most successful musical interpreter throughout Czech history.
In 2004, he decided to spend an unusual Christmas, and therefore he traveled to Maldives right before the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. He survived.
See also
- Best selling music artists — World's top-selling music artists chart.
External links
- karelgott.com (http://www.karelgott.com/) — official homepage
- karel-gott.de (http://www.karel-gott.de/) — official homepage for German speking countries
- The Golden Voice Of Prague (http://karel-gott.czechian.net/) — unofficial homepagecs:Karel Gott