Karel Plíhal (* August 23, 1958 in Přerov) is a Czech guitarist, singer, composer, lyricist, poet, music director and arranger.
He graduated from the Secondary Industrial School of Mechanical Engineering in Olomouc, then worked as a designer, a fireman in the Olomouc theater and eventually became a songwriter, although he has no musical education. He has been playing the guitar since he was fifteen. He first played in the Olomouc underground country-swing bands Hučka, Falešníisters and Plíharmonyje. He had his first solo performance in 1983. Between 1985 and 1993 he collaborated with Emil Pospíšil and in 1995–1999 he was accompanied by Petr Freund. Karel Plíhal is a four-time winner of the Porta competition music festival award.
He composed music for a number of productions at the Moravian Theater in Olomouc, including Goldilocks, The Servant of Two Masters, The Love of Don Perlimplin and the Passion of Belisina, Manon Lescaut, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Winter's Tale, The Passion and the Glorious Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Giroflá. He set some of Kainar's poems to music, directing the recording of albums, such as Jarek Nohavica, Petr Fiala, the Ebony brothers and Bokomara.
In 2006, he published a selection of his poems, Like cool in a fence, accompanied by illustrations by humorist and cartoonist Miroslav Barták. For his album Vzduchoprázdniny, which was released in 2012, he won the Anděl Award in the Folk & Country category.
After a medical break caused by focal dystonia, which prevented him from playing the guitar, guitarist Petr Fiala began to accompany him at concerts in 2018.
Karel Plíhal is a very shy man. His shyness or anxiety is kindly caricatured in the film The Year of the Devil. At concerts, he addresses the closeness of the audience, for example, by having the spotlights set against his eyes so that he cannot see the audience clearly.
"The original speech is further underlined by the small verses with which Plíhal interweaves the whole performance. They reflect the details of everyday life and the point is always laughing at the audience. … And when he returns to sign his books, he is again a timid and quiet man who he would rather not be. But that would be a great pity. "
