Ivan Mládek

Biography

In 1967–1968 Ivan Mládek earned his living in France by playing the banjo and the balalaika in Russian cabarets. After half a year he returned to Czechoslovakia and founded a group of his own.

He was born on 7 February 1942 in Prague and grew up in Holešovice, in a family of white-collar workers. His father, Bohuslav Mládek, was a lawyer; according to some accounts he also painted and taught his son to draw. Music, however, caught Ivan’s interest earlier. He finished a technical secondary school of mechanical engineering and then the University of Economics, where he studied in the same year as the future politician Václav Klaus. He received an engineer’s degree but, as far as one can tell, did not work in the field.

From 1966 Mládek performed in public in jazz and country groups: Storyville Jazz, K.T.O., White Stars and the Mustangs (Mustangové). In 1970 the album “Písně Amerického západu” (“Songs of the American West”) came out with White Stars, and in 1974 “Mustangové 74” with the Mustangs. The Banjo Band, which he put together after coming back from France, became the main work of his life. He leads the group, writes its repertoire, plays the tenor banjo and sings. Ivo Pešák, Lenka Plačková and Milan Pitkin were among its regular members. His first major record, “Dobrý den!” (“Good Day!”), was released by the label Panton in 1976, followed by “Nashledanou!” (“Goodbye!”, 1977) and “Ej, Mlhošu, Mlhošu!” (1979). In 1977 came “Jožin z bažin”, a surreal ballad about a man-eating monster from the swamps who can be defeated only with a crop-duster plane. Mládek himself called it the “anthem” of his country show. In 2008 the song became a radio hit in Poland and Hungary, and later reached Russia as well. In April 2018 it was played in Prague by Metallica.

He has written more than four hundred songs, mostly country with a touch of Dixieland, with puns and comic lyrics. Among the best known are also “Zkratky” (“Abbreviations”), whose text consists almost entirely of abbreviations, “Prachovské skály” (“The Prachov Rocks”), “Medvědi nevědí” (“Bears Don’t Know”) and “Praha–Prčice”. Some of the lyrics were written with Zdeněk Svěrák, who wrote part of the words in the songbooks “Písničky do kapsy” (“Pocket Songs”).

Mládek’s first humorous story was printed in 1980 by the magazine Mladý svět (“Young World”). About eight books of stories and feuilletons followed, among them “Zápisky šílencovy” (“A Madman’s Notes”, 1990), “Příběhy z divokého Východu” (“Tales from the Wild East”, 1991) and “Banjo Band Story” (1995), in which he told the history of his group himself.

In the 1980s he became known as a comedian. Television viewers know him from the programmes Čundrcountry show (from 1994) and Country estráda (2002), which the channel TV Nova took off the air in 2005. Later came the sitcoms “Cyranův ostrov” (“Cyrano’s Island”, 2008), “Cyranův poloostrov” (“Cyrano’s Peninsula”, 2009) and “Noha 22” (“Leg 22”, 2011). His routines include monologues, skits and wordless sketches set to one of his songs. His film roles are few and mostly small: in the films “Ještě větší blbec, než jsme doufali” and “Na druhé koleji” he played himself.

Mládek’s invention, the Guitariano, is a guitar-shaped synthesizer: in place of strings there are keys on the fretboard, the pitch corresponds to the string pressed at the same fret, and the body carries buttons for automatic accompaniment.

He paints in oil, and many of the works are playful: “Noah’s Ark”, “The Expulsion from Paradise”, “Lady with an Ermine”, “Švejk’s Monument”, “Banjo Band on the Beach” (200 × 110 cm), “A Famous Portraitist”. The perspective in his pictures is reversed. In 2018 the publisher Mladá fronta issued the book “Ivan Mládek obrazem i slovem” (“Ivan Mládek in Pictures and Words”), in which he comments on his own canvases; Petr Zajíc was co-author. In 2020 Czech Post issued “Jožin z bažin” stamps for the fiftieth anniversary of the Banjo Band.