Bele Višnje was a Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

n and former Yugoslav rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 band. The band is notable for being one of the pioneers of the former Yugoslav rock scene.

1962-1973

The band was formed in Čačak

Cacak

Čačak is a city in central Serbia. It is the administrative center of the Moravica District of Serbia. Čačak is also the main industrial, cultural and sport center of the district...

 in the autumn of 1962 by Aleksandar Slaviković "Gušter" (guitar

Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

), Ljubodrag Jovanović (bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

), Zoran Sokić (keyboards

Keyboard instrument

A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

), Mišo Ilić (rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...

), Dragan Maksimović (drums

Drum kit

A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

), Slobodan Pajić (vocals) and Muhamed Hukić (vocals).

During 1963 the band started to perform in their most successful lineup which featured Slaviković, Pajić, Hukić, Sokić (who switched to bass guitar), Stevo Radović (rhythm guitar) and Predrag Radonjić (drums). With the arrival of composer Radović, the band started working on their own songs. On the first Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 Gitarijada festival, held on January 9, 1966, the band performed first, starting their performance with a cover of the folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 song "Crne oči, curo, imaš". On Gitarijada the band won the seventh place, which made possible for them to perform at bigger concerts. In the autumn of 1966, due to their leaving to studies, Sokić and Pajić left the band. During 1966 the band perofrmed the song "Plavokosa" which saw success with the audience. Several years later the song was, under the title "Plavuša", recorded by Kićo Slabinac

Kico Slabinac

Krunoslav "Kićo" Slabinac is a Croatian folk singer. His specialties are the songs inspired by folk music of Slavonia region of Croatia, and the uses of traditional instruments such as the tamburica...

 (who served the army with Radović in Titograd), who achieved nationwide popularity with it. With the new bass guitarist, Miki Vukadinović, Bele Višnje performed on the second Belgrade Gitarijada festival, held on January 23, 1967. The band performed a cover of the folk song "Moj dilbere" and the song "Tango" and won the third place. During the following years the band changed the lineup several more times, featuring Slobodan Rabrenović (guitar), Jovan Matijašević (bass guitar), Vladimir Šunjevarić (guitar) and Zoran Branković (bass guitar). In 1972 the band recorded their only 7" single, featuring the songs "Čips hit" and "Čarobne oči", released through Diskoton

Diskoton

Diskoton was a major record label based in Sarajevo, Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the former Yugoslavia. It should not be confused with another former Yugoslav record company with a similar name called Diskos....

, and disbanded the following year.

Reunions

The band reunited in 1990. The lineup featured Vladimir Šunjarević, Stevo Radović, Predrag Radonjić, Slobodan Pajić and Jovan Matijašević. As there were no recordings of the band's songs from the 1960s, in 1994 the band, on the initiative of Radomir Mihajlović Točak, recorded their old songs, released on the audio cassette Pesme naše mladosti (Songs of Our Youth) by Zvuci Galaksije. The album was produced by Mihajlović. In 2005 Pesme naše mladosti was reissued on CD by the same record label.

In November 2010, the band reunited to perform on a celebration of fifty years of rock music in their hometown Čačak.