Janusz Kruk (7 August 1946 – 18 June 1992) was a Polish singer, guitarist and composer, the leader of the popular band

2 Plus 1 2 Plus 1 were a Polish band performing pop and folk music, and, in the later period of their activity, also synthpop and rock. They were founded in 1971 by Janusz Kruk and Elżbieta Dmoch. The band recorded ten studio albums, three of which hav ...

Career

Kruk graduated from a music secondary/high school in Warsaw, specializing in

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

. At the end of the 1960s, he founded the band Warszawskie Kuranty, a member of whose was also

Elżbieta Dmoch Elżbieta Dmoch (born September 29, 1951) is a Polish singer and flautist, former member of the popular band 2 Plus 1. Career Dmoch started to attend singing lessons in her earliest years. She went to a musical school, where she learned to pl ...

. In January 1971, Janusz and Elżbieta formed a new group,

, which would become highly successful in Poland in the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. The band also scored a number of minor hits in Western Europe and Japan, and released two albums internationally. Kruk was the leader of 2 Plus 1 until his premature death in 1992. He composed most of the songs and holds arrangement and production credits for most of the albums, except for the two English-language LPs, '' Easy Come, Easy Go'' and '' Warsaw Nights''. In the mid-late 1980s Kruk started composing musical scores for various theatre plays.

Private life

Kruk married three times. For over fifteen years his wife was Elżbieta Dmoch, the co-founder of 2 Plus 1. The couple married in February 1973 and divorced in the late 1980s, after Janusz had left her for another woman. Janusz Kruk died from a heart attack on 18 June 1992, aged 45, leaving behind his partner and two children. Prior to this, he had been struggling with cardiac problems. His death turned out to be a deep shock for Elżbieta, who has since become reclusive.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kruk, Janusz 1946 births 1992 deaths Musicians from Warsaw Polish country singers Polish folk singers Polish male guitarists Polish pop singers Polish rock singers Polish male singer-songwriters Polish singer-songwriters 20th-century guitarists 20th-century Polish male singers