Early years From a very young age, Čolić showed an interest in music. With friend Braco Isović, he played guitar at informal and impromptu park gatherings around their neighborhood through which they became known locally as 'Čola i Isa sa Grbavice'. At the time, Čolić was trying to emulate pop
schlager music that dominated Yugoslav and Italian festivals. His first love was Milena Mijatović from Belgrade. His first significant public singing experience occurred in 1967 while at the
Montenegrin coast for the
Yugoslav Republic Day celebrations. Staying in the wooden
prefab vacation home his family owned in the coastal community of
Baošići, seventeen-year-old Čolić was persuaded by a friend, Nedim Idrizović, to enter an amateur singing competition in nearby
Bijela. The teenager won second prize singing "
Lady Madonna" by
The Beatles. Encouraged by the unexpected success, soon after returning to Sarajevo, Čolić entered his first band—a group called 'Mladi i lijepi'. This participation lasted until he graduated high school in 1969 when he decided to move on to the more established
Ambasadori, a band whose two incarnations Čolić would end up staying with for the next two and a half years.
Ambasadori When Čolić joined them, Ambasadori employed an unusual setup: being essentially a
military cover band as all the musicians, except for bandleader Slobodan Vujović, were
Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) ranked officers. Their repertoire centered around the 1960s
rhythm & blues (
Chicago,
Otis Redding,
Wilson Pickett, etc.) along with obligatory Yugoslav hits of the day and years past, and finally even a few original numbers written by the bandmembers thrown into the mix. Over time, the group started getting more gig offers, which presented a problem since its army part was not available for many of them, and those offers had to be declined. Seeing their opportunities limited by the strange situation, Vujović and Čolić decided to step out and form Novi ambasadori in 1970, bringing in drummer Perica Stojanović, organist
Vlado Pravdić, saxophonist Lale Stefanović, and bassist Zlatko Hold. With the almost all-new lineup, the band also expanded its repertoire so that in addition to R&B they now also played covers of
Led Zeppelin,
Blood, Sweat & Tears,
Creedence Clearwater Revival, and others. In the summer of 1970, Novi ambasadori scored a month-long gig with
Indexi in
Dubrovnik, which was their first tour-like experience. Čolić was soon offered a "bench role" with Indexi, to fill in for their singer
Davorin Popović, and even performed with them a couple of times.
Korni grupa In the meantime, during the summer of 1971, Čolić finally met face to face with Kornelije Kovač who came to see Čolić play in
Mostar and invited him to join his band
Korni Grupa as a replacement to their departed singer
Dado Topić. On 10 September 1971, twenty-year-old Čolić left his hometown and moved to the capital
Belgrade to join his new band. However, his stint with Korni grupa ultimately proved to be very short and largely unsuccessful as he never meshed well enough with the rest of the group musically, finding it hard to fit into their
progressive rock style. He recorded three tracks with them, "Kukavica, "Gospa Mica gazdarica", and "Pogledaj u nebo", all of which were released on the 7-inch single by
PGP-RTB. Track "Gospa Mica gazdarica" managed to create minor controversy due to the slightly risque lyrics written from the perspective of a young man imploring his older female landlord to allow him into her bed—a nod to Čolić's life at the time since he was living away from home in
sublet apartments. Due to numerous complaints, the song was taken off radio playlists. Soon, however, Čolić and Kovač agreed that it would be better for Čolić to go solo. Only six months after his arrival to Belgrade, he returned to Sarajevo determined to give his solo career a try. ==Solo career==