Karel Gott

Karel Gott was born in Plzeň in 1939 and trained as an electrician before his voice changed everything. From the Semafor theatre stages of the early 1960s, he rose to become the defining voice of Czech popular music — a position he held, without interruption, for almost sixty years.

He recorded nearly a thousand songs, sold tens of millions of records and was voted the nation's most popular singer forty-two times. In Germany and Austria he was a star in his own right; generations of children across Europe know his voice from the Maya the Bee theme.

Karel Gott passed away in Prague on 1 October 2019. Tens of thousands of people stood in line to say goodbye. His songs are still played at weddings, kitchens and concert halls across the country he sang for.

The most beloved Czech singer of all time. For six decades, his voice was the soundtrack of everyday life in Czechia and far beyond its borders.