Tier 3 · vertical & regional
Maciej Zembaty
Person · male · Poland · Tarnów · born 1944 · died 2011 · recording since 1988
Polish artist, poet, singer (1944–2011)
official homepagedatabasedatabasedatabase
Also known as Maciek Zembaty · Maciej Zębaty · 马切伊·泽巴蒂
Timeline
9 events▣ Album 6◦ Birth 1★ Debut release 1† Death 1
1940s
1980s
· Debut release
Debut release: Ostatnia posługa
First documented Album in the MusicBrainz discography.
source: musicbrainz
1990s
2000s
2010s
Biography
English biography432 words · 2 sectionssource: wikipedia-en · licence CC BY-SA 4.0 · revision 1378880538
Biography
Maciej Zembaty (16 May 1944 – 27 June 2011) was a Polish artist, writer, journalist, singer, poet and comedian. Despite being considered one of the classics of Polish black humour, he is perhaps best known as a translator and populariser of songs and poems by Leonard Cohen.
Life
Maciej Zembaty was born on 16 May 1944 in Tarnów, and raised in Wadowice in Poland. He graduated from a musical lyceum (piano class) and attended an artistic lyceum (which he never graduated from). Afterwards he graduated from the Warsaw University's faculty of Polish language and literature. His thesis was one of the first studies of grypsera, a distinct slang language used by the criminals and inmates of prisons in Poland.
His stage debut was a brief appearance at the Opole Song Festival in 1965, where he was awarded with a prize for the best featuring song author. In 1972, together with Jacek Janczarski, he created the story of Poszepszyński Family, one of the best-known and longest-running comic series ever aired in the Polish Radio. It has been aired for 25 consecutive years and became one of the icons of the Polish popular culture of the epoch. Zembaty himself also appeared in the series giving his voice to the iconic personality of Maurycy. In the 1980s he performed in a duet with John Porter.
Later that year he also received a number of records of Leonard Cohen, whose songs he started to translate. In several months he created a dozen or so translations, most of which became hits in Poland even before the original songs by Cohen became available and known to wider audience. From that time on Zembaty became known primarily as the translator of Leonard Cohen's work into Polish. He holds the record for Leonard Cohen covers, having translated and recorded at least 60 songs over 10 albums. One of the albums (1985 Alleluja) was sold in over 400,000 copies in Poland and became a golden record. In addition, Zembaty published a number of books with translations of Cohen's poetry, some of them in official printing houses, while other unofficially in the samizdat. Zembaty's translation of The Partisan became one of the informal anthems of Solidarity during the Martial Law in Poland.
Apart from his career as a translator of poems by Cohen, Zembaty continued his career as a journalist, comic and writer. He co-authored the screenplays to a number of films, as well as being the author of many songs. He also translated a number of Russian folk songs, most of them related to Blat, a Russian version of the Polish grypsera.
Discography & profile
Normalised profile
Percentiles are computed over every artist in the database, so a tier-3 artist can still sit in the 95th percentile on a single axis.
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 8 | 49.7th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 6 | 79.7th |
| Studio albums | 6 | 86.1th |
| Awards recorded | 2 | 92.6th |
| Timeline events | 9 | 85.5th |
| Recording span (years) | 17 | 39.7th |
| Genres | 1 | 56th |
Percentiles are computed at render time; missing values mean the artist has no data on that axis.
Discography (6 release groups · 6 studio albums)
Albums · 6
1988 · studio album
Search SpotifySearch YouTube Music
Tracklist · 15 tracks · 57:56
1Ballada o Imogenie3:582Szpitalna biel3:163Piosenka o Maruśce2:544W prosektorium2:195Miłości, nie zostawiaj mnie6:566Trudno, jeśli nie mozna inaczej2:377Poduszka5:128Bajka dla Rafałka4:099Sejm kalek6:1110Tempelhof3:5911Ostatnia posługa3:3612Onuce3:3713Hymn internowanych ekstremistów2:3614Uszy3:5115Towarzyszu Stalin2:451991 · studio album
Search SpotifySearch YouTube Music
Tracklist · 15 tracks · 57:20
1Ballada O Imogenie3:552Szpitalna Biel3:133Piosenka O Maruśce2:514Towarzyszu Stalin2:455W Prosektorium2:166Miłości, Nie Zostawiaj Mnie6:537Trudno, Jeśli Nie Można Inaczej2:358Poduszka5:099Bajka Dla Rafałka4:0610Sejm Kalek6:0911Tempelhof3:5712Ostatnia Posługa3:3413Onuce3:3414Hymn Internowanych Ekstremistów2:3415Uszy3:491998 · studio album
Search SpotifySearch YouTube Music
Tracklist · 11 tracks · 45:48
1Każdy o tym wie5:532Kokainistka2:553Jestem Twój3:494Wakacje z kobyłką2:155Nebraska3:386Wspomnienia5:467Każdy nerw3:508Marynarka1:599Czekając na cud7:3210Letni czas1:5511Wieża pieśni6:162002 · studio album
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Tracklist · 30 tracks · 1:44:15
Disc 11Uszy3:462Romans otwocki4:453Ballada o Imogenie3:534Wujek Staszek3:205Pieśń pierwszomajowa3:376Wiesio P.2:257Piosenka o Maruśce2:488Modlitwa6:399Zgubiłam dzień4:3610W prosektorium2:1411Ostatnia posługa3:2512Niestety3:1713Trudno jeżeli2:3314U sąsiada2:1115Tempelhof3:51Disc 21Kołysanka Rosemary4:442Bajka dla Rafałka4:043Kokainistka2:534Ma matka była damą3:455Nebraska3:376Olaboga3:037Jak będziemy mieli małe4:568Marynarka1:589Nędzna miłość3:2810Onuce3:3311Balladka japońska3:0712Sowa i kotek2:3213Co komu się należy3:5914Zmory2:2215Pieśń IX2:5435x Leonard Cohen – śpiewa Maciej Zembaty
2002 · studio album
Search SpotifySearch YouTube Music
Tracklist · 35 tracks · 2:37:10
Disc 11Ptak na drucie4:142Kim jestem Ty wiesz4:123Dziś w nocy będzie fajnie2:334Nauczyciele4:235Wydaje się tak dawno, Nancy5:326Kto w płomieniach?4:467Lover, Lover4:198Wspomnienia6:259Diamenty w kopalni2:5510Maleńka, nie wolno się żegnać w ten sposób3:0211Słynny niebieski prochowiec7:0912Zuzanna4:4313Czy to jest to czego chciałaś?5:1814Jedno z nas nie może się mylić5:1115Partyzant2:55Disc 21Tańcz mnie po miłosci kres4:492Wciąż wojna trwa2:423Prawo3:554Żona Cygana5:105Dzisiaj tu, jutro tam3:356Lawina3:337Goście4:498Kołysanka myśliwego3:139Jeśli wola Twa5:1410Alleluja4:4711Opowiadanie Izaaka3:4512Siostry Miłosierdzia4:49Disc 31Zdrajca5:072Joanna d'Arc5:213Upokorzona miłością4:314Madonna Samotności4:315Manhattan3:096Okno5:087Zamglone życie4:598Rzeźnik6:262005 · studio album
Search SpotifySearch YouTube Music
Tracklist · 16 tracks · 1:10:32
1Ballada o Imogenie3:532W prosektorium2:143Wspomnienia5:454Bajka dla Rafałka4:045Słynny niebieski prochowiec7:096Onuce3:347Piosenka o Maruśce2:488Każdy o tym wie5:519Ostatnia posługa3:2510Tańcz mnie po miłości kres4:4911Miłości, nie zostawiaj mnie6:5012Uszy3:4613Alleluja4:4614Szpitalna biel3:1115Zuzanna4:4316Jestem Twój3:44
Stats & PK
Percentile within all 23,672 published artists.Put Maciej Zembaty head-to-head →
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 8 | 49.7th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 6 | 79.7th |
| Studio albums | 6 | 86.1th |
| Awards recorded | 2 | 92.6th |
| Timeline events | 9 | 85.5th |
| Recording span (years) | 17 | 39.7th |
| Genres | 1 | 56th |
Awards & honours
| Year | Award | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | Officer of the Order of Polonia Restituta | won | |
| — | Officer of the Order of Polonia Restituta | won |
Where this record comes from
portrait—Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maciej_Zembaty_20090508.jpgaliases/urls—musicbrainz · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/6a6651b4-de87-498a-a329-6dcb3635b84bdiscography—musicbrainz · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/6a6651b4-de87-498a-a329-6dcb3635b84bcore—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7944568genre—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7944568seed-list—wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maciej_Zembatybiography—wikipedia-en · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maciej_Zembaty
Why this artist is in the database
- List of Polish musicians and musical groups
Tier rule: curated genre/region list
Image: Kotoviski photograph by Henryk Kotowski · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Wikidata: Q7944568 · MusicBrainz: 6a6651b4-de87-498a-a329-6dcb3635b84b
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