Karel Černoch was born on 12 October 1943 in
Prague. As a child, he was in a children's choir. He attended singing and guitar at a folk art school, but he did not finish his studies at the secondary art school and worked as a
props maker at
Barrandov Studios. He started singing in 1962. When he went to compulsory military service that year, he met
Jiří Grossmann and
Miloslav Šimek and founded a theatre group with them. After his military service, he began to devote himself to
big beat. In the late 1960s, he sang several hits with the band Juventus that made him famous. His first song to be played on the radio was
Nářek převozníka ('The ferryman's lament'). In 1969, he won the
Bratislavská lýra prize for the best song with the song
Píseň o mé zemi ('Song about my country'). However, because of it, and because of his
protest song Zlej sen ('Bad dream') and because of his contribution to the protest song
Modlitba pro Martu ('A prayer for Marta') of
Marta Kubišová, the
communist regime in Czechoslovakia banned Černoch from performing for several years. From 1972, he worked in the Ateliér Theatre. In the late 1970s, he turned to
country music and sang with Jiří Brabec and
Naďa Urbánková. In the 1980s, he performed with orchestras of
Karel Vlach,
Gustav Brom, Josef Vobruba and Václav Hybš. In the last decade of his life, Černoch has focused primarily on acting and singing in musicals. He appeared in the musicals
Dracula,
Monte Cristo,
Evita and
Les Misérables. Černoch died of
colorectal cancer on 27 December 2007 at his home in Prague, aged 64. He was buried at his family tomb at the
Olšany Cemetery in Prague. Černoch was appreciated for his distinctive three-octave
tenor. He had perfect singing technique, was able to sing difficult passages with ease, and knew how to adapt to different musical genres. ==Family==