The weekend just ending is one of the saddest in Czech popular music. First, the media reported on the death of the father of Czech music journalist Jiří Černý, then there was news of the passing of Jan Kalina, the frontman of the ska group Sto zvítěr, and finally, the singer and composer Vašo Patejdl also died unexpectedly. The co-founder of the Slovak pop-rock group Elán was 68 years old.
If you are not mine from the movie Fontána pro Zuzana by Vaša Patejdla is one of the most famous Slovak songs of the 80s. Photo: ČTK | Video: Radio and Television of Slovakia
He is usually referred to as a Slovak musician, but that is not entirely accurate. Patejdl came from a mixed Czech-Slovak marriage and was born in Karlovy Vary. He moved to Slovakia with his parents when he was five years old. Lately he mostly lived in the Czech Republic.
However, he spent his peak era on the Slovak stage. Already in 1968, when he was fourteen years old, he founded the group Elán with his classmate Jož Ráž. With her, he created one of the cornerstones of Czechoslovak popular music in the 1980s.
Vašo Patejdl performing in the Miss Slovakia 2018 competition. | Photo: Profimedia.cz
Slovak pop music experienced an incredible rise in the last quarter of the 20th century. There were a number of reasons for this. The main one is the fact that adoption of the Constitutional Act on the Federation from autumn 1968 opened up a much larger space for Slovak culture in the media. Coincidentally, a strong generation of artists began to mature on the scene there, far less bound by non-musical influences. Ján Lehotský, Miroslav Žbirka, Marika Gombitová, Laco Lučenič and Elán represented the first Slovak wave, which used the newly created space and, thanks to a more modern sound, successfully appealed to the Czech audience as well.
Vašo Patejdl was one of the three key personalities of Elán. He played keyboard instruments, sang well, and above all, he was famous for his sense of melody. One of Élan’s first hits, Stuntman from 1980, he worked in the context of the then settled and clichéd Czechoslovak pop music as a revelation. However, he also won second place with it at the annual Bratislava Lyra festival.
Patejdl worked with Elán until 1985, when he embarked on a solo career. He said that next to his creative colleagues Jož Ráž and the singing guitarist Ján Baláž, he did not have enough space to apply his compositions. “Elan grew to such proportions that we played two hundred concerts in a year, and it seemed like an awful lot to me. I wanted to slow down,” he mentioned also in Muzikus magazine.
Vašo Patejdl, Jožo Ráž and Ján Baláž from the group Elán in the Prague club Jazz Dock, 2014. | Photo: ČTK
His first solo album Boy’s Smile from 1986 had a great response. The other two records also did well, but the main thing came with the film trilogy Fontána pro Zuzana, which produced several big hits including one of the most famous Slovak songs of the 80s If you are not mine. All three parts of Fontana pro Zuzana were directed by Dušan Rapoš, the last one premiered in 1999.
Patejdl was a hitmaker of his time. We associate it with the typical sound of the 80s. He was able to write melodies that caught the listeners’ ears, and he also had a sense for lyrical atmosphere and catchy slow tracks, crawlers. He was a master of strong, often graduated choruses and was not afraid of romantic pathos.
Unlike most generational species, he was able to write not only for himself, but also for others. Remembrancers remember the song By stairs by Richard Műller and his group Banket nebo We are what we are by Beata Dubasová.
But the most famous composition he created for another artist is probably Water that keeps me afloat, composed for Jož Ráž. The title track from the third volume of Fontana pro Zuzana will remain in the history of popular music as the first Slovak song to reach the top of the Czech radio charts after the breakup of Czechoslovakia. In addition, it probably lasted the longest at this peak between 1999 and 2000.
Patejdl returned to Elán as a keyboardist and singer in 1996, but he liked to compose for Czech performers. He wrote for Hana Zagorová Please, our Godfor Helena Vondráčková Where you areLucie Bílá and Pavol Habera sang his Crazy loveIveta Bartošová again You look like my love and Karel Gott had his brisker melody in his repertoire I want you.
In 2007, Prague’s Kalich Theater staged Patejdl’s musical Jack the Ripper, which later recorded a big success in South Korea.
Patejdl’s death came unexpectedly. Less than three Sundays ago, he performed at the Venátská festival with Impulse, his website is full of concert dates for the last third of this year, with Elán he intended to celebrate his seventies in September 2024 in Prague’s O2 arena.
An inspiring, honest musician famous for his friendliness and understanding, a composer who lived primarily through music, has passed away.
Elán included the song “Water, what keeps me above water” with music by Vaša Patejdl and lyrics by Jozef Urban in his concert repertoire. Photo: Profimedia.cz | Video: Zeal
2023-08-20 15:00:31
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