Ljiljana Buttler

Biography

Ljiljana Buttler (1944-2010) was a half-Croatian Gypsy singer. Buttler was born Ljiljana Petrović on 14th December 1944 in Belgrade, then in Yugoslavia. She was the daughter of a Croatian singer and a Gypsy accordionist. Her father left the family shortly after the birth of his daughter. She moved to the city of Bijeljina, where her mother performed in pubs. As a teenager she began singing, and when she returned to Belgrade she settled in the Skadarlija entertainment district. In the 1970s she...

Ljiljana Buttler (1944-2010) was a half-Croatian Gypsy singer.

Buttler was born Ljiljana Petrović on 14th December 1944 in Belgrade, then in Yugoslavia. She was the daughter of a Croatian singer and a Gypsy accordionist. Her father left the family shortly after the birth of his daughter. She moved to the city of Bijeljina, where her mother performed in pubs. As a teenager she began singing, and when she returned to Belgrade she settled in the Skadarlija entertainment district. In the 1970s she broke through in Yugoslavia as a singer and released several successful albums. During the 1980s her career slowed; in 1989, due to political unrest, she moved to Düsseldorf, Germany.

In 2001 the Amsterdam-based Bosnian music producer Dragi Šestić convinced Buttler to record a new album with the Bosnian band Mostar Sevdah Reunion: The Mother of Gypsy Soul (2002). In 2005 they released a second album, The Legends of Life, and in 2003 they embarked on concert series, particularly in Europe. The music of the group is a mix of gypsy and Balkan music, jazz, and sevdah. Buttler's last album, Frozen Roses, was released in 2009.

Buttler died of cancer at the age of sixty-five on 26th April 2010 in Düsseldorf.
Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.