Veljko Despot (born 4 March 1948) is a Croatian music journalist and record business entrepreneur. He has been involved in all aspects of the music industry as manager-director, record label owner, reporter, chief editor, radio and TV program director. In 1998, Despot received recognition from the Croatian government as one of top private entrepreneurs in the country. Despot was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and since 1950 has lived in Zagreb, Croatia, where his father was a respected businessman. His mother, Mirjana, studied cello at the Zagreb Conservatory under Italian cellist Antonio Janigro and later taught many cellists herself. Career Despot's career began at the age of 18 in local press ("Plavi vjesnik") reporting from London on swinging sixties and trilling pop and rock scene. He was the first journalist from former Yugoslavia who specialized in covering international popular music, and was the first and only East European journalist to interview The Beatles. This interview was published as one of his first articles, in "Plavi vjesnik" (17 April 1967). In the late sixties, Despot's articles appeared in several Croatian publications, including Arena, Studio, and Vjesnik, interviewing artists such as Pink Floyd, The Hollies, Bee Gees, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Marc Bolan, and The Who. Despot attended recording sessions of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (London, 1967), Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed (London, 1969), Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (London, 1969) and Arsen Dedić's Homo volans (Zagreb, 1973). In 1967, Despot was part of the very first record producer agreement in Yugoslav recording industry history, producing an EP release for the Slovenian rock group Kameleoni. In 1968 he produced their soundtrack for the film "Sončni krik" ("Sunny Cry") by director Boštjan Hladnik. In 1968 Despot founded the Jugoslavenski Beatles Fan Club/The Yugoslav Beatles Fan Club in Zagreb, a branch of The Official Beatles Fan Club which covered most East European countries. He was also co-founder and on the board of editors of the Zagreb "Pop Express" (1969–1970), one of the first music newspapers in Yugoslavia. Since 1971, he has also contributed to New Musical Express. Since 1968, Despot has continued to contribute as a freelance music journalist on radio stations, and since 1972 on the Yugoslavian Radio Television (Jugoslavenska radiotelevizija or Jugoslovenska radio-televizija, JRT), on Croatian Radio Television and subnational radio and TV centers based in Belgrade, Ljubljana and Sarajevo. Throughout the seventies, eighties and nineties Despot had numerous music