Pavle Kavec has passed away, one of the central figures from the pioneering days of Slovenian and Yugoslav rock music. He was one of Slovenia’s most influential guitarists, and through his mentoring he helped many talented young Slovenian musicians take their first steps into the world of music.
The album “Raskorak”, which he put out with the trio Oko in 1976, is considered one of the foundational monuments not just of Slovenian rock but of Yugoslav rock as a whole. In those long-gone days of big dreams and unexpected rock’n’roll pioneering, records like this marked a turning point in the search for more dynamic and complex ways of arranging and composing, where rock and elements of jazz joined hands.
Early on, Pavle discovered a love for the character and work of Jimi Hendrix. The legendary guitar hero became the bedrock of Kavec’s inspiration. So Pavle soon founded the rock band Yeti Experience, where he started playing Hendrix covers. In 1971 he joined Skarabeji, which was his springboard to the trio Oko. Kavec founded Oko in 1972. Three years passed, the band changed its lineup, and Kavec stuck it out through all of it. In 1975, Oko finally recorded their first single for ZKP RTV Slovenija, the song Vse sem dal ti, with Spet nazaj keeping it company on the B-side. In 1976 the band recorded and released their only studio album for the label Jugoton, the cult classic “Raskorak”. At first the band recorded the album in Slovenian, but at Jugoton’s suggestion they redid the recording in Serbo-Croatian!
Even before the album came out, Kavec was left on his own in the band again. For a short while he played with Boomerangi, then revived Oko, which lasted until 1978, when it stopped playing for good.
In 1983, Pavle Kavec released a solo studio album as Pavel Kavec & Prijatelji, titled “Hočeš z menoj”. His son Mitja Kavec plays bass on the album, and Dragan Gajić contributed the drums.
At the turn of the millennium, the valiant guitarist revived Oko in 1998. That same year, “Raskorak” got its reissue. In 2001 came the one and only live album, “Live December 2000 (A Tribute To Jimi Hendrix)”.
Even though Kavec never gave us any fresh original songs or another album after that, Oko played regularly at all sorts of venues, including their almost obligatory annual gig around the May Day holidays on top of Rožnik hill in Ljubljana.
Pavle Kavec is a legend among Slovenian musicians. Not only did he work as a mentor to young players, he also ran his own music school and was a great motivator who knew how to fire up and encourage young guitarists so they could find the right direction on their path of growing and maturing. That’s why the mark he left on the Slovenian rock scene over all those years is rock-solid and unshakable!
and that flattering nickname, ‘the Slovenian Hendrix’, will keep following Pavle. From here into eternity. Rest in peace, dear Pavle.
