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Slobodan Felekatović

Drums and composer

Slobodan Felekatović is one of the most original drummers of the 1970s in Belgrade. In a career that unfortunately lasted only about 10 years, Felekatović made numerous recordings with the group TAKO, which were recorded on the group's albums , "TAKO" 1978 and "In The Sleeping Bag" 1980.

Slobodan FelekatoviĆ - felke Biography

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Slobodan Felekatovic - Felke was born in 1957 in Belgrade. Even in high school, he started playing drums with his friends from the area where he lived, a part of Belgrade called Karaburma. They played in villages in Banat ,Srem and around Belgrade, and the repertoire consisted of blues standards by Muddy Wathers, B.B. King, the group Cream, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, etc. At the beginning of 1977, an acquaintance of Dusan Cucuz, guitarist Vidoje Bozinovic, invited Slobodan to meet the members of the group T A K O who were looking for a drummer. On the same day when they met in the famous restaurant Sumatovac, the decision was made to become a member of the group T A K O .

That year 1977 was very, very stormy and exciting both for the T A K O group and for Slobodan. Guitarist Miroslav Dukic lived with a Norwegian woman who was in Belgrade with a friend who liked Slobodan, so they were together from mid-April to November. In that year, the group T A K O had many performances both in smaller towns and cities and at large festivals throughout the then state of Yugoslavia.

Events followed, which were mainly related to the T A K O group until 1981, when the group stopped working on its own initiative because Slobodan had to go to military service. After the army, he worked for a couple of years in a company as a carpenter, but it was temporary, and he only occasionally played with his colleagues in situations where he replaced someone from the standard line-up. Until the beginning of the 90s, he earned money by doing occasional jobs, and he received twice a year royalties and performing fees from the SOKOJ author's agency. At that time, he played with the Led Zeppelin tribute band "Patty Lucy Band". The fact is that during that period, and especially later, he began to consume alcohol in increasing quantities and more and more often it ended with drunkenness. A family tragedy followed that in a few years, the mother and brother died, and in the early 90s, the father was left alone. In those 90s, Dusan Cucuz visited him occasionally and helped him. but it was a difficult time in which everyone's existence was threatened, so even Slobodan found it increasingly difficult to survive. After being detained a couple of times because the policemen found that he was heavily intoxicated, he ended up in an institution that was open and housed convalescents from alcoholism treatment and drug users.

His sister and her husband visited him there and brought him money and gifts to make his stay there easier. Otherwise, he had good drums there because the Austrian Embassy donated a set of instruments for a rock band. In 2016, the members of the group T A K O, Dusan Cucuz and Mirosalv Dukic found out where Slobodan was, and in January 2017 they visited him and determined that he was in excellent physical and psycho-physical condition. After he told them the problem that they sometimes stop him from playing the drums because it is too loud, after a month they visited him again and brought him a bunch of accessories for the drums so that he could practice without being noisy. Unfortunately, that was the last meeting.

The guitarist of the group T A K O had the idea to transfer him to a home for the elderly in Karaburma through influential people where he could see famous people and come back in a social sense, and since something like that can only be initiated by one of his relatives, he called Slobodan to give him his sister's phone number or address. An employee of the institution answered the phone and informed Miroslav that Slobodan had died a month before that call from heart failure... 07/24/2018. That is the official version and there were others, unverified. Slobodan was an exceptional musician who sang brilliantly and knew guitar and bass well.

Rest in peace, our good Felke.

Slobodan Felekatović’S Gear