Last year, singer Marie Puttnerová received the Czech Music Academy Award for the folk album of the year for her debut album Laila tov. Her new album comprises her versions of songs by one of the most outstanding voices of the Czech folk scene, singer songwriter Zuzana Navarová. 7 December 2024 marks the twentieth anniversary of the untimely death of the singer and the present album is a personal tribute to her genius.

The album Zelená oblaka, růžové stromy (Green Clouds, Pink Trees) is produced by Petr Ostrouchov and Martin Novák (who are also colleagues from the Blue Shadows band, which has been collaborating in the past six years on the most recent albums of Vladimír Mišík). They both also feature in the band that met in the studio along with guitarist Petr Uvira, drummer Miloš Dvořáček, bass guitarist Jakub Vejnar, and clarinettist and saxophonist Marcel Bárta. For the performance of the Czech and Spanish lyrics of the song “Nechoď nikam” (Don’t Go Anywhere), Puttnerová has been joined in the recording by the song’s co-author Iván Gutiérrez, who regularly collaborated with Zuzana Navarová in the 1990s in bands like Tres and KOA and who has revisited the song for the first time after twenty-five years in this cover version. 

“I know that if I start telling you how exceptional Zuzana Navarová was, how special her music was, how much her style influenced my own work and how inspiring it was to meet her, I won’t be saying anything new. Those of us who had the chance to hear her perform live, who were around at the time as her, should be grateful for that gift. I was lucky enough to have worked with Zuzana briefly, the result of that collaboration being our song “Čert ví proč” (The Devil Knows Why). And my encounter with Maruška Puttnerová made it tempting and possible to revisit the seemingly inaccessible world of Zuzana’s songs, and I am glad that when I suggested it, she was willing to consider the idea and to get infected by it. We really loved making this album,” says one of the album’s producers Petr Ostrouchov.

“When Petr approached me with the idea of making a cover album of Zuzana’s songs, it took me a while to decide whether should go along with it. I never sang any of her songs before. But, as they say, the more you try to avoid something, the more of it you get, and so now I have this amazing relationship with those stunningly beautiful songs. I’m not even sure how it all happened, but I am so thankful for it,” adds Marie Puttnerová.