He infected listeners with beauty and walked his own path. Marek Grechuta’s career was strewn with suffering

Grechuta came from Zamość, a city not without reason called the Padua of the North. And this part of artistry was visible in his work at every step. He was born in 1945 and, as a boy, he experienced separation due to his parents’ divorce. He endured the situation hard and felt a constant need for acceptance, and his innate sensitivity was intensified by growing up surrounded by women: his mother, sister, grandmother and aunt. It was this period that was to influence his work, which was brimming with delicacy and lightness.

Under Grechuta’s expression of seriousness, even sadness, there was a great deal of emotional charge accumulated in the artist during his youthful years. When he was in high school, he was looking for an idyllic love that would soothe his troubled emotions and he found it in Halina Marmurowska, with whom he fell madly in love. As she recalled years later, “He had a partner, a friend in me. He wouldn’t be interested in a flighty girl. He liked to play four-handed with me, either he on the piano and I on the violin. We enjoyed walks, bridge, kayaking, trips” – this is how she described them relationship in the book “Moments We Don’t Know. The Story of Marek Grechuta” by Marta Sztokfisz.

However, their charming, innocent love came to an end when Marek started architectural studies in Krakow, and Halina started medical studies in Lublin. The separation turned out to be painful for his beloved and she decided to break up with Grechuta, which she still considers a failure in her life. However, love knocked on the artist’s door soon. In 1968, he met Danuta, with whom he stood at the altar two years later. She was his support and rock until the end of the artist’s life.

It was shaped by Krakow. He was Ewa Demarczyk’s favorite

The beginning of Grechuta’s artistic work is inextricably linked with the Piwnica pod Baranami in Krakow. It was there that, among Ewa Demarczyk and Zygmunt Konieczny, the talent of the then shy young man was born among the urban artistry of the 1960s. Together with his friends from the Faculty of Architecture, he co-founded the Anawa cabaret. Already then, young Grechuta attracted the attention of not only girls, but generally everyone with his stage presence. Although the time of functioning within Anawa was a time of unbridled carefreeness for the artist, real fame was yet to come.

Marek Grechuta with members of the Anawa band before their performance at the Opole festival in 1969 (photo: Tadeusz Rolke archive / Agencja Gazeta) Marek Grechuta with members of the Anawa band before their performance at the Opole festival in 1969 (photo: archive of Tadeusz Rolke / Agencja Wyborcza.pl)

Although initially Grechuta’s performance during the qualifying rounds for the National Student Singer Festival in 1967 did not bring the jury to their knees, at the suggestion of Ewa Demarczyk, it was decided to give him a chance in the final. There, in October, thanks to the performance of songs such as “Heart”, “Tango Anawa” and “Oranges and Mandarin”, he made the whole of Poland go crazy about him. The concert was broadcast on television, and although it took second place (Maryla Rodowicz won), it received the Grand Prix for performing the first song.

Away from the spotlight. He consistently delighted audiences

Grechuta was not ready for such a great success and instead of being a show-stopper, he valued peace and the life of an artist rather than a celebrity. Then the illness worsened and took him to hospital. Despite this, he managed to perform at the festival in Opole a year later. He was so successful there that he received an apartment from the city authorities. In the following years, he regularly released great albums, although not very often – in 1972, “Droga za widnczas” was released, followed by “Magia obłoków” (1974), “Szalona lokomotywa” (1977), “Pieśni Marek Grechuta to the words Tadeusz Nowak” (1979), “Singing Images” (1981), “W raspberry chruśniaku” (1984) and “Spring – oh to you” (1987). The whole of Poland sang songs from these albums.

Gradually leaving the stage. Difficult fight against diseases

At the end of the 1980s, Marek Grechuta limited his artistic activities, and the audience even accused him of having alcohol problems. Yes, it happened that the artist staggered or confused the lyrics of his songs during his performances, but the cause of most of his problems was the bipolar disorder that had been plaguing him for years. His depressive symptoms made his artistic activity very difficult, which was also disturbed by the strong pharmacological substances he took. The artist could stop his performances without a word of explanation. Therefore, over time he decided to avoid large events and, at the expense of performing on large stages (e.g. the festival in Opole), gave concerts to smaller audiences.

The turn of the millennium was a time of advanced stage of his disease. As Bogusław Kaczyński recalled, Grechuta no longer resembled the cherub from his youth. He gained a lot of weight, and the performer himself did not know about his health problems. Even though in 2003 he recorded the album “Niezwykłemiejsce” dedicated to his favorite cities of Grechuta, from the vocal side it was clear that he was fighting an unequal fight against illnesses. The artist died three years later, on October 9, 2006, and the direct cause was circulatory failure. Although 17 years have passed since his death, his enthusiasm for the world and exaltation over the beauty of life in his works still delight listeners.