a fortuitous meeting with american country singer johnny cash in 1978 advanced his profile outside of the czech republic, when they got together on the floor of the us embassy to sing the song "will the circle be unbroken" and, in 1980, he was awarded the zlatá porta za zásluhy, a high czech honour. with their historical connection in mind, in 2010 bobek went to nashville, tennessee, united states, with producer luboš malina, where he made a cd of reworked cash songs which he called ""víc nehledám"" (""looking no more""). after a long serious illness, which almost cost him his voice years prior to his death, he partially returned to live concerts in may 2012, and released a new album called ""circles"".