Café Dedicated to Karel Gott Opens in Prague
Saxophonist Felix Slováček and other friends, colleagues of Karel Gott have opened a memorial café, Café Karel, in the centre of Prague. The café is located on Dlouhá Street in the arcade next to the theatre. It is dedicated to the most successful Czech singer of popular music of all time. Often referred to as the “golden voice of Prague” and the “Sinatra of the East,” singer, actor, and painter Karel Gott’s career spanned six decades. Emerging in the early ’60s, Gott’s first solo single, a rendering of Henry Mancini’s “Moon River,” helped put him on the map, and as the years progressed he dabbled in everything from pop, rock, and country to opera and swing. Able to entertain in Russian, English, German, and Italian, as well as his native Czech, Gott was hugely popular in Eastern Europe, but also found favor with audiences in Western Europe and the United States. By 1960, he was studying opera and voice at Prague Conservatory under Konstantin Karenin, who taught Gott to embrace popular music as well as the classics. He released his first single, a duet with Vlasta Pruchova, on Supraphon Records in 1962. His first solo single appeared in 1963 as a...