I started a new series to remember the fact that Eurovision is 70 years old. 28 of those years I had attended Eurovision at the host city, but unfortunately just 25 years I had press accreditation so I could meet the participating artists and therefor I will focus just on artists from those 25 years.1995 was my first year with accreditation and of course that year stands out in my memory.  23 artists participated that year in Dublin.  I met 22 of them, the 23rd one refused to meet me because I was from South Africa.

8 of the 22 artists were very special and I still cherish them to this day as part of my Eurovision experience. These are the 8 artists from 1995 I will write about.

Second in line is JAN JOHANSEN who represented SWEDEN with SE PA MEJ. As I arrived at the venue, the first artist I ran into was JAN. He was so kind and nice, we got on very well and it helped that I love his song.

We are  still friends on facebook to this day and his song SE PA MEJ was the very first song I got covered in South Africa on my return from Dublin. The song was very popular and several covers were made, in both English and Afrikaans.

Several more of his later songs were also covered in South Africa.

As from 1995 I started helping South African artists to cover Eurovision songs, almost 500 have been done until I stopped after 2019 when the 2020 Eurovision song contest was cancelled due to Covid and I stopped traveling to Eurovision.

Featured image – Youtube