Radovan Jovićević

Radovan Jovićević (Serbian Cyrillic: Радован Јовићевић) is a Serbian pop-rock/folk music composer, producer and band leader. Born in Belgrade on 31 January 1956, he has lived in New York City since 1999.

Radovan’s career began at the end of the seventies, when he established Zana, the first Balkan band that successfully combined new wave sound with commercial pop.

Helped by keyboardist Zoran Živanović, singer Zana Nimani (his high school girlfriend) and Marina Tucaković (the most successful lyricist in Yugoslav pop/folk music), Radovan paved the way of commercial success for many other young new wave bands in Yugoslavia. Although Zana’s first album Loše vesti uz rege za pivsku flašu was experimental with sound, the second, Dodirni mi kolena, was pop-oriented and sold in over 500,000 copies. Songs from this album are still being covered by contemporary pop-rock bands in the Balkans. Their third album Natrag na voz was another success thanks to the song that topped the charts – "Jabuke i vino": a duo by Zana Nimani and Željko Bebek (singer of Bijelo dugme). After Zana Nimani left the band for a solo career in the mid-eighties, Jovićević and Živanović changed a few female singers, but continued in the same musical directions, adding Balkan ethno elements to their songs.

In "Vejte snegovi" (1987) they collaborated with a legendary folk clarinetist, Boki Milošević. As a multi-talented artist, together with music composing/producing, Jovićević got involved in the production of Zana’s music videos. He also composed for the most popular Serbian folk singers and had top chart hits.

Distracted by the Yugoslav political/economic crisis in the nineties and challenged by his international career Jovićević, his wife Gordana, and their son, Nikola, left for New York City in 1999. His American career started in the field of computer animation/web design further developing into a movie soundtrack production. Until then, he had composed music for Bought and Sold (2003), The Meeting (2005), Recalled (2006), And Then Came Love (2007).

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