When Josipa asked me to write a few lines for Live in ‘Lap’, I took this as an honour, a privilege and as an obligation due to my long time acquaintance with her and Karlo. Our relationship didn’t lack periods filled with harsh words, but I have the feeling they only made us closer.

Only later have I become aware of the ad hoc dimension of the promise I pledged to keep, because what we have here is not an ordinary record. It brings back the memories and rewinds the film, on the icy surface of emotions on which one can slip very easily – and then, of course, fall. That is why I took the opportunity and decided to write my modest contribution to the first of Josipa’s albums that Karlo will never see (even though he heard it) from a distance, in a small room in Greenwich Village. The place here is filled with New York’s versions of Zagreb’s ‘Lapidarij’ club. I met Ben E. King, the original performer of ‘Stand by me’, in ‘Tramps’ club and gave him Josipa’s concert version to listen to. He was thrilled! This first compliment for Live in ‘Lap’ came from a singer who we are all indebted to for a special chapter in the anthology of soul and rock and roll! Karlo, who was marked by his professional and personal fate as a timeless cosmopolitan, would surely know how to appreciate Benny’s compliment.

“Stand By Me”! This phrase is certainly symbolic. Josipa and Karlo stuck to this command for more than twenty years, and their album ‘Dnevnik jedne ljubavi‘ (‘Diary of a love’) that they made together back in 1973, is like a dedication to the union of two human beings that interweave the threads of their intricate relationships in an unbroken line of life. “We were one” – Josipa remembers. “Nobody had to ask him why he stopped singing; Karlo sang through me. He made me what I am. As a friend and as a musician he always analysed every aspect of my interpretation. He curiously listened to my application of it in different genres.” Here is the solution of the possible enigma: why does the spirit of Karlo Metikos define this record of Josipa Lisac on which she, similarly to the movement of the flipper ball, touches a rather unconventional repertoire, such as popular American songs (“Stormy Weather”, “Over the Rainbow”, “The Lady is a Tramp”), jazz (“Round Midnight”), pop/rock (“Yesterday”, “Moondance”), together with her and Karlo’s hit songs? Karlo Metikos distinguished himself from his contemporaries because he never wanted to remain rooted in his better past. To be honest, the paths on the musical map of his sentimentally memorable reminiscences regularly led to the crossroads of Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino; Elvis and Rick Nelson, but his awareness that life does not cease in the shell petrified with nostalgia gave him the encouragement to form Josipa’s interpretational profile in accordance with the aesthetic conventions of modern musical production. He knew where the equals sign between trend and creativity ceases to exist. He also knew that the steadiness of a singer-artist, which Josipa undoubtedly is, is reflected in the variety of innate vocal talent, traditional heritage and open-mindedness in accepting all the new indignities of the record industry, which, following the course of the political thought and practice of the 20th century, seeks to inhibit all bounds.

Josipa always readily, compatibly and expertly adjusted to this ambitiously set task. I think that precisely on this concert release of Live in ‘Lap’ she managed to dispense with all illusions, that is, to surpass her public image of the extravagant person from the stage and place it in the frames of pure musical expression. During the course of the history of pop music, live recordings were not always a reliable key for deciphering the real truth about a certain musical performer. We usually see them as a routine contribution to a particular discography. Josipa’s voice (or ‘The Voice’, to borrow Sinatra’s nickname, adapted to our pop context), combined with the special treatment of the songs, sometimes sophisticatedly arranged, accompanied by competent musicians (Ante Mazuran, guitar, Davor Crnigoj, bass guitar, Salih Sadikovic, drums), sound recording (which the veteran engineer Mladen Skalec says is one of his most successful ever) and excellent postproduction, make Live in ‘Lap’ an exception to the rule.

The English would say: “Labour of Love”, made by Josipa Lisac and Karlo Metikos, together with passion with which they penetrated into the music. I would personally, therefore, call Live in ‘Lap’ the second part of Dnevnik jedne ljubavi (Diary of one love) album, which does not need any quotation marks, since the years have altogether removed them long time ago.

Dražen Vrdoljak
New York City, February 26, 1992