Željko Bebek
Bosnian-Herzegovinian singer
Želimir "Željko" Bebek (born 16 December 1945) is a Bosnian and Croatian vocalist and musician most notable for being the lead singer of the Yugoslav rock band Bijelo Dugme from 1974 until 1984. He has since maintained a successful folk-pop solo career.
Early years
Bebek was born in Sarajevo, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia to parents Zvonimir and Katarina. His family were Herzegovinian Croats originating near Ljubuški. He showed an early interest in music, entertaining his mother's house guests by singing songs he had been hearing on the radio. He also experimented with harmonica but abandoned it in third grade of primary school, preferring to play guitar and sing along. His teacher, however, discouraged such intentions so Željko ended up playing mandolin instead. He soon became the school's best mandolin player and was allowed to play guitar as a reward.
At age sixteen, Bebek began taking the stage at Eho 61, an open mic club-like school activity for the musically inclined students of Sarajevo's Second Gymnasium. A couple of years earlier, the same stage had seen a performance by teenage Kornelije Kovač who would later also go on to become a famous musician and composer.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Željko Bebek” is bosnian-Herzegovinian singer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Željko, Bebek and Bosnian-Herzegovinian, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “bosnian-Herzegovinian singer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q223595. VIAF identifies the subject as 305493967. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945, 1974 and 1984.
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This entry incorporates text from “Željko Bebek” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.