Composer of some of the best loved pop songs in Poland, Jarosław Kukulski, has died at the age of sixty-six.

In the 1970s Kukulski, father of pop diva Natalia Kukulska, composed hit songs for his first wife Anna Jantar, including Najtrudniejszy pierwszy krok and Tyle slonca w calym miescie. After Jantar’s death in a plane crash thirty years ago, Kukulski wrote songs for his daughter Natalia and many other popular singers such as Krzysztof Krawczyk, Halina Frackowiak, Irena Jarocka, Eleni.

Jaroslaw Kukulski was born on 26 May 1944 in the western town of Wrzenia. He attended the Music Academy in Warsaw and played jazz in Dixieland jazz bands.

In 1968 Kukulski set up the Waganci band, the lead singer of which was Anna Jantar, his future wife. Later, he encouraged Jantar to start a solo career and composed songs for her. Kukulski also composed songs for his second wife, singer Monika Borys, with whom he had a son, Piotr Kukulski. The couple divorced in 2003.

“He was a great artist and a great person – warm and amicable,” Maria Szablowska, a music journalist who knew Kukulski personally told Polish Radio.

“Songs that he wrote 30-40 years ago are still alive,” says Szablowska and adds that many Polish singers owe their careers to him.

Kukulski suffered from an aortic aneurysm and underwent surgery in a clinic in Nuremberg in May 2010. (mg)

Source: IAR