He is the best selling artist from Croatia and former Yugoslavia, with well over 20 million records, cassettes and compact discs sold to date, and is often regarded as one of the most popular musical performers from Southeastern Europe.
In 1961, at the Prvi glas Šibenika (First Voice of Šibenik) competition, he shared the title of the best with Mirko Vukšić, the future guitarist of the group Mi, and chose the single by Elvis Presley for the award.
At one talent competition in Karlovac, with the song "I Can't Stop Loving You" by Ray Charles, he experienced great success and was soon noticed by music producers.
Despite the disappointing performance, new records followed with silver circulations of fifty thousand copies – renditions of "Ja odlazim" (I'm Leaving), "Vrijeme plakanja" (Crying Time), "San Francisco" (original by Scott McKenzie), "Da je duži moj dan" (If My Day Was Longer), and others.
In 1971, he won the Split Festival with the song "Proplakat će zora" (The Dawn Will Start Weeping) by Stjepan Mihaljinec and Drago Britvić, which sold more than 300,000 copies, which definitely established him on the throne of the most popular singer in Yugoslavia.
[6] In 1977, he won the Split Festival with "Noćas ćemo zemlji ko materi reći" (Tonight We Will Tell the Land Like a Mother) with the Klapa Maslina.
In 1982, he returned to Dalmatian, local themes with the golden album Dalmacija u mom oku (Dalmatia in My Eye), arranged by Krste Juras and Dušan Šarac, from which the hits became the single of the same name and "Šibenske kale" (Šibenik's Streets).
He also collaborated with Idoli and Vlada Divljan on the recording of his 1968 song "Da je duži moj dan" for the soundtrack of the film Six Days of June in 1985.
[9][better source needed][11][12][13][14] In September 1991, he joined the Croatian Band Aid on the recording of the song "Moja domovina" (My Homeland), in which he sang the line "Ima oči boje mora" (She has sea-colored eyes).
He also recorded other patriotic songs during the Yugoslav Wars, such as "Grobovi im nikad oprostiti neće" (Graves Will Never Forgive Them) and "To je zemlja gdje žive Hrvati (Herceg-Bosna)" (That's a Land Where Croats Live (Herzeg-Bosnia)).
After years of depression and alcoholism, on 14 January 1999, in a Zagreb apartment at Maksimirska 69, Kovač shot himself in the chest with an unregistered Beretta pistol, but he survived and fully recovered, and his mental state later improved considerably.
In August 2004, with Klapa Teuta as guests, he held a concert on the Republic of Croatia Square between the Cathedral of St. James and the city hall in Šibenik.
The third single from the album and the only new song, a duet with his daughter Ivana, the ballad "Tvoja mala" (Your Baby Girl), was a bit more successful on the charts, reaching the top of domestic pop music on some radio stations.
Mišo performed some of his greatest hits with Mihaljinec on the piano at the award ceremony, to the applause of the audience and the musicians present, as well as other Porin winners.
At the same time, Ivana Kovač and Klapa Bunari released a song dedicated to Mišo–"Dalmacijo, srce oca moga" (Dalmatia, My Father's Heart)–which was well received by the audience.
[26] According to his own confession, he repeatedly refused to sing for Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito,[27] and in 1972 he donated the proceeds from the sale of the record "Proplakat će zora" and a concert with Boris Dvornik for the construction of the Zagreb-Split highway.
[30] In 2002, he marked the 40th anniversary of his musical activities with a sold-out concert Centimetar moga puta (Centimetre of My Path) in the Arena Gripe in Split, from which he donated part of the proceeds again for the construction of the Zagreb-Split highway.
His wife and their two children appear with him in the music videos for the songs "Malo mi je jedan život s tobom" (One Life With You Isn't Enough for Me) and "Ako me ostaviš" (If You Leave Me).
After the death of his son Edi, his marriage to Anita broke up and he briefly tried to have a love affair with the 30-year-younger astrologer Silvija Conte Calvi Marković.
Another image closely related to Mišo Kovač is his recognizable pose during concerts, in which he lets the audience sing his songs with open arms.
[38][39][40] Julije Jelaska also published a comic about Mišo Kovač, with the lyrics of the song "Dalmacija u mom oku"[41] and "Ostala si uvijek ista".
[42] His song "Poljubi zemlju" (Kiss the Land) became the unofficial anthem of the Croatia men's national water polo team, which sang it after winning the 2012 Olympic tournament in London and during the reception ceremony in Zagreb, together with the audience.