Jovica Petković was born on 01 September 1927 in Smederevo. He started playing the accordion at the age of seven. Jovica Petković came to Sarajevo only with a primary education of four years. With this graduation, he got a job as an accordion player at the famous and at that time very important and powerful Radio Sarajevo. His unrestrained will to grow, to learn and to work on himself brought him as a musician even up to the student of the Faculty of Economics Sarajevo. He was regarded as the greatest virtuoso on the harmonica. Although he was originally a Serb from Šumadija, he joined the ranks of the most important and productive authors of songs that corresponded to the spirit of Bosnian-Herzegovinian folk music, the music that the writer Ivan Lovrenović called the crown jewel of our culture and the musical tradition of Bosnia-Herzegovina. By this, he meant the Sevdalinka. Many of Jovica’s songs Petković are based on this, our song, and represent its successful imitation. In this respect, few are on a par with him, as he was at eye level with Jozo Penava, Šerbo, Rade Jovanović, Zaim Imamović and several other authors. Jovica Petković experienced the greatest joy an author can have, namely that his songs were accepted by the people as traditional songs during his lifetime. Jovica Petković has not counted numerous awards and prizes that he has received at home and abroad for a long time. Nevertheless, he received one of the most beautiful and valuable honours in Vienna from an Italian company that produces the famous accordions “Dalappe”. Since he was playing harmonica of this brand, he was its most famous advertising face. This company appreciated this. At Jovica’s Viennese address a few years ago a giant parcel with the new “Dalappi” unicum worth 15.000 Euro was delivered.
He died on 14 September 2015 in Vienna (Austria).