You can't put barbed wire

The book ‘Ostnatej drát nenaladíš’ (You Can't Tune Barbed Wire) is not just a dramatic retelling of the life of Jiří 'George' Kozel, one of the “founding fathers” of Czech big beat music, but also a reflection of the years remembered as the “golden sixties”. He belonged to the adolescent generation of the post-war years, for whom the British rock scene became a fascinating role model after the abolition of censorship and the relaxation of the social atmosphere. The growth of prosperity from the 1950s onwards meant that young people had more free time and money. The mass sale of record players, radios, and televisions, along with concert shows and music magazines, played a key role in creating the cult of stardom and pop culture on both sides of the Iron Curtain. A culture was born in which rock as a form of expression and self-definition, sexuality, and drug experimentation were a demonstration of the existence of a generation that rejected everything from the past, authority, and war. Hundreds of big beat bands emerged, among which Blue Effect, founded by none other than Jiří 'George' Kozel, is one of the greatest legends. He was one of those for whom freedom was both DNA and a lifestyle, and to maintain it, they were willing to risk their future and their lives, leaving their homes and their loved ones behind. In the second part of the book, we follow his life and career during his twenty-year exile, when he played with world-class musicians—if they weren't playing directly in his bands, Crown and Free Formation—right up to his triumphant return to the Czech big beat stage. Vladimír Mertlík