Here is the winner – never gets tired of it
01 – Lied fur einen freund – Maxi & Chris Garden (Germany 1988)
Tag Archives: Ralph Siegel
EUROVISION 2003 – RIGA – LATVIA
Having always wanted to go to the three Baltic states, I was able to see Estonia the previous year and now Latvia was next. Unfortunately it was another country without an embassy in South Africa. And as always, no direct flights. I decided to fly with AUSTRIAN AIRLINES via Vienna to Riga. As there was no daily flights to Vienna from Johannesburg as well as no daily flights from Vienna to Riga, it meant a 48 hour transit in Vienna on the way to Riga. I was not in the mood to spend that much time in an airport lounge and since I had a good penfriend in Vienna, I decided I will get off and stay with him. This meant a visa from Austria (Schengen). Well, what a nightmare. The day before I applied for the visa, a South African woman died on a plane between Johannesburg and Vienna and did not have enough insurance and this got the AUSTRIAN embassy to look at applications for visas in much more detail and require bigger health and medical insurance. But also due to the fact that I was staying with a friend, they wanted to see this person’s Meldesetter – never heard of that before. It took 6 weeks before my visa was issued and I got it the day before I had to depart. The Latvian government (who was not part of Schengen at that time) and the Latvia broadcaster came to my rescue and said I could enter Latvia visa free since I had the BALTIC VISA for 2002 through their embassy in the Netherlands. They would have officials waiting for me the Sunday at the airport and escort me into the country but there is a fee of 20 euro for this service. So arriving there, these people waited for me and I felt like a top VIP being escorted into the country and to my hotel by these people. From that moment, Latvia became my most loved country of Europe – never before a country did this for me, an ordinary SA citizen. Also the Latvian entry for that year, HELLO FROM MARS was so beautiful.
2003 proved to be quite a special year. Latvian TV, like Estonian TV the previous year, gave me also a ticket for the final but since I do not like attending the live shows, I swapped it with an ordinary Latvian citizen in exchange for a Latvian CD. This guy was so excited to be able to attend Eurovision in his home country.
I also had one scary incident. Morten was out for the evening to something (I can’t even remember) and I decided to walk to a shopping center to buy something nice to nibble on. I took a short cut through a tunnel underneath the big road and inside this tunnel was a drug addict who suddenly started shouting at me and began chasing me. I ran and luckily some other people came into the tunnel and shouted at this drug addict to leave me alone. I then discovered that you could be in danger no matter in what country you are.
In the hotel was a guy who carried my luggage up to my room. We got chatting and I discovered he was well educated but not able to find a job in Latvia. I recommended to him to try South Africa as his qualifications were in high demand in South Africa. A year or so later, I heard from him – he was in South Africa and employed at one of the universities in Pretoria.
Norway was back at Eurovision after not qualifying in 2002 and they had Jostein Hasselgard, a 24 year old singer. Originally they thought he had a limited possibility to win the national final but he took the country by storm with his laid-back yet genuine performance and during the tele-voting there was never any doubt that he would be the winner.
Ralph Siegel was again at Eurovision, this time with Lou and “Let’s get happy”.
Russia had t.A.T.u and one of my biggest hates. I refused to attend the press conference and missed out on the promo single. OGAE Norway, however, bought it for me on some auction.
I don’t think I need to write a lot about the United Kingdom entry “Cry baby” by the duo Jemini. The UK fans really did CRY after this, giving the UK its worth placement at that stage in Eurovision. Now I quite like the song although not a top favourite.
Belgium brought Urban Trad with “Sanomi” in some non existing language and this was another song I hated but did so well on the night.
Sweden brought even more FAME to themselves by sending Fame with “Give me your hart” which still is a classic to me. For some reason (which I cannot recall now) I did not really meet the duo personally.
And then there was Poland bringing Ich Troje and “Keine grenzen”, 100% the kind of song I like – many language in one. Ich Troje was a totally new name to me but I then discovered especially the lead singer Michal Wisniewski was extremely famous in Poland and I saw all the pictures of him on the covers of various magazines. We were also told at the press conference that they gave something like 300 concerts in crowded stadiums in the past 2 years.
Ukraine debuted this year and they brought Olexandry with “Hasta la vista”, which I like a lot. I also attended the party organized by Ukraine with the help of Martti Immonen from Finland. This song turned out to be the ONLY Ukraine enter ever to make my top 10.
A nice touch was that Latvia invited kids from orpanages and such institutions to attend the rehearsals.
Flying back home from Riga, my flight on Austrian airlines to Vienna departed the Monday and guess who sat on the plane next to me? It was Alf Poier, the Austrian singer. He was surprised about my knowledge of Austrian music but remarked that it seems I know only the Schlager side (which of course is true). He was happy with his position at Eurovision.
Musically 2003 was a fantastic year with no less than 3 songs getting 10 out of 10 from me
Sweden – Give me your love – Fame
Poland – Keine grenzen – Ich Troje
Latvia – Hello from Mars – F L Y
But Eurovision won’t be Eurovision without songs I hate as well and it also brought songs who got 0 out of 10 from me
Russia – He bepb he boncr – t.A.T.u.
Belgium – Sanomi – Urban trad
To read previous years go to esccovers
http://www.esccovers.com/tag/lookingback/
EUROVISION 2002 – TALLINN – ESTONIA
I hated the 2001 winner from Estonia but was delighted to go there – I have always wanted to go to the three Baltic States but due to politics, South African citizens were not able to travel there until 1995 or so. Now I was able to go to the first one. It was my first Eurovision to a country without an embassy in South Africa and so problems to get the visa. Estonia made a special arrangement for to me to pick up a Baltic visa at the Latvian embassy in De Hague on my stopover there before I flew onto Tallinn.
Estonia also made me feel really special and even gave me a free VIP ticket for the final. I do not really like sitting inside the venue but I did and once the performances were over, I rushed out to follow the voting on the big screen inside the press hall.
In the press hall was free beer as a beer company was one of the sponsors.
We had a wonderful hotel; the people were so special and so hard working. The woman at reception misspelled by surname by writing it as one word instead of three loose words and she said they are not allowed to make such mistakes and I got one night stay in the hotel for FREE. Across the street from our hotel was Stockman, the Finnish chain store and I bought some CD’s there.
Personally I regard Tallinn as one of the best places to stay. We had many invitations to the various embassies and at one embassy (it was the Latvian embassy), Morten and I were the first guests and so we have a long chat with the ambassador. In the old city there were also various parties organised by some of the countries and people sort of jump from one party to the next (I think one night there were three parties at the same time and close to one another).
I predicted Latvia to win after seeing the stunning and surprising performance. It is not one of my favourite songs, but already by then Eurovision moved away from a SONG CONTEST more to a PERFORMANCE CONTEST due to tele-voting. Even 4 days before the final, the Latvian head of delegation wrote in my passport “See you in Riga next year”.
Macedonia had a special promo single packed very interesting. A local singer Jenny Kirsten covered the Estonian entry of that year song and packed her single in a similar way (just more African).
Greece brought Michalis Rakintzis with a song called “S.A.G.A.P.O”. Besides the lovely promo single, Michalis gave me also a full CD
Spain had high hopes this year – they has a whole selection over several weeks and in the end Rosa with “Europe’s living a celebration” won and came to Tallinn. I was very disappointed with the song, I expected so much better. It was also the biggest group of Spanish fans I had seen at Eurovision.
Ralph Siegel was also back, and this time with “I can’t live without music” by Corinna May who won the selection a few years earlier with a song but was then disqualified. This song was catchy but totally wrongly performed.
Slovenia rocked the boat by sending Sestre with their song “Samo Ljubezen” and we attended a party hosted by them.
Switzerland brought Francine Jordi. I had known her already with especially songs from the Grand prix of Volksmuzik. The song was good but they entered with the French version and I thought the English and German versions were better choices.
Malta nearly won when Ira Losca, while singing “7th wonder” threw star dust during her performance and surprised people.
Denmark brought a strange CD with 20 tracks on – it was recorded live at Martinez Ballroom on 22 January. They thought I would like it since it contains Safri duo with their song BAYA BAYA. To be honest besides Safri duo, I have never heard of any of the 19 other artists in this CD and have never played it as well. But being a collector, it has a spot in my CD collection.
As the venue was outside the city center, we went there every day in a shuttle bus and all the time we traveled with some delegation and artists and have really great personal contact.
Musically I like the following songs
Israel – Light a candle – Sarit Hadad
Estonia – Runaway – Sahlene
Cyprus – Gimme – ONE
France – Il faut du temps – Sandrine Francois
Malta – 7th wonder – Ira Losco
Switzerland – Dans le jardon de mon ame – Francine Jordi
Interesting is that there were actually no song I hate – a few were just average
United Kingdom – Come back – Jessica Garlick
Russia – Northern girl – Prime minister
Spain – Europe’d living a celebration – Rosa
To read previous years go to esscovers
http://www.esccovers.com/tag/lookingback/
EUROVISION 1999 – JERUSALEM – ISRAEL
This was one of the best Eurovisions in many ways. This was the only time ever I had a direct flight to Eurovision. It was also the shortest flight (every other flight to Eurovision took almost 24 hours with lay overs somewhere) and the only time I could visit without a visa. But I had accommodation problems as the travel agent lied to me. Instead of securing me accommodation close to the venue, I was living in a guest house miles away from the venue. The travel agent said I wanted to stay CLOSE to a bus stop to take me to the venue, but my directive was that I want to stay as close as possible so I could walk there. It took almost an hour travelling by bus to Eurovision every day. Also I was totally away from any official hotels, so I was unable to use their transport and so I had to buy a bus ticket daily. I must say the guest house was out of this world, but totally wrong for me who came to Eurovision and wanted to be close to the venue.
Israel gave me my best accreditation ever – made me HEAD OF DELEGATION of SOUTH AFRICA so for the first and only time, I was allowed backstage to speak to the artists in private. They also produced for me a press card so that I was also able to get a pigeonhole. That year I represented the Portuguese radio station RADIO CIDADE.
Morten had a very special flight to Israel. He was on the same plane with all the artists from the Nordic countries. In the same plane were Selma (Iceland), Van Eijk (Norway), Charlotte (Sweden) and Trine and Michael (Denmark). Finland did not qualify for Jerusalem, so they were not there. Carola Haggkvist was also on the plane.
My flight from Johannesburg landed 3 minutes after the plane with the Nordic delegation. Charlotte Nillson spoke to me while we were waiting to go through customs and asked me what I thought of her song. At that stage there was a big debate about whether to sing in Swedish or English since the change of the language rule. I told Charlotte her song, “Take me to your heaven” would be a winner. More countries did televoting and I just knew for those viewers hearing/seeing the song the first time, this will do well. Patricia Lewis from South Africa covered the song and it sold 100 000 copies for her. She impressed the composers so much that they invited her to Stockholm where they produced a full CD for her.
Ralph Siegel was of course also in Jerusalem with Surpriz and their song Reise nach Jerusalem – kudus’e seyahat – it was exactly 20 years since he had been there with Dschinghis khan.
There were a change in rehearsals – Lithuania was suppose to be last on the first day but due to flying in only the next day (to save money), they swapped with another country which I cannot remember now but think it was Estonia.
Austria had a great promotion – their entry was “Reflection” by Bobby Singer and press people were given a disposable camera to take photo’s of Bobby and the person taking the best photo would win a holiday in some Austrian ski resort.
The biggest shock to me was the Friday before the final when the Jewish SUNDAY started and I was stuck 5 kilometers away from my guest house and no public transport and had to walk the distance home. Luckily it was mainly downhill.
Obviously with no transport to go to the venue from the guest house on the Saturday to watch the final from the press center, I stayed in my bed and watched the final on TV.
The entries I like best are
Sweden – Take me to your heaven – Charlotte
Iceland – All out of luck – Selma
Malta – Believe ‘n peace – Times three
Portugal – Conc tudo comecou – Rui Bandeira
And some horrors as well
Lithuania – Strazdas – Aisle
United Kingdom – Say it again – Precious
Spain – Lydia – No quiero escuchar
EUROVISION 1998 – BIRMINGHAM – UNITED KINGDOM
When people ask me to pick the most awful of all my Eurovisions, it is easy to answer. It is this one by a long shot. Even before arriving at Eurovision, the biggest horror was the fact that Germany sent Guildo Horn as their entry – one of my biggest hates to date (and for all those who like German schlager music). In all honesty I have to say that the 1998 German selection was not that special. A penfriend sent me the compilation CD and although there were 3 Ralph Siegel songs in the selection namely “Kids” by Sharon, “Can-can” by Ballhouse and “Carneval” by Kopenick – none of these songs really stood out. I remember listening to the songs with Lana who worked with me and she went crazy over the “Gel song” by Fokker.
The trip also started with a horror drama. A week prior to my departure, I got off my bus from work and the bus driver closed the door before I was completely off and my arm was caught in the door and it broke the glass of my watch. The bus company said they would pay for the repairs, but I had to get two quotes. Naturally they accepted the cheapest one and I handed in my watch, saying I wanted it back before departing for Eurovision. The day before my departure, the watch was ready and I went to fetch it. Suddenly a guy stormed into the shop with a gun, demanding money. He grabbed a female as hostage. She was looking at a tray of expensive golden rings. The shock of being grabbed as a hostage was too much for her and she collapsed. The robber thought someone had shot at him but hit the female, grabbed some of the rings and ran out. The rest of us in the shop finally got our speech back and realized what a close escape we have had. So I did not have a good start to my journey.
1998 also brought the biggest crisis for me surrounding accreditation. The BBC did not think it was special for me to come all the way from South Africa for Eurovision when tons of South Africans are living in London and surroundings areas. If Greece had not come to my rescue and offered me accreditation (knowing that I do shows for the Greek radio station in Johannesburg), I would have had an even more miserable Eurovision. I was so upset that I left the Thursday before the final and flew to the Netherlands where I watched it on TV and televoted for Estonia. It was the first and last time I had ever televoted.
My hotel in Birmingham was also not that special. It was near the venue and affordable but it was small and I was the only Eurovision journalist staying there. But most of all, for some strange reason there was no curtains in front of the windows. And my room looked out right on a lamppost in the street. Since I am totally unable to sleep when it is light, I had to use my bedspread every night in front of the window to make the room dark.
At Eurovision Guildo Horn had so many followers – they were all around – tons of them came by boat to Birmingham to support their singer. His press conference was packed.
1998 also had DANA INTERNATIONAL for Israel and a lot of hype, as it was the first sex change singer to be at Eurovision. The press predicted the winner would come from either Guildo or Dana.
This was also when I met up with Chiara from Malta who was still very young and I was able to see how she grew and matured in later years when I met her again in 2005 and 2009.
The year also saw the first introduction of televoting on a limited scale – I am not sure but I think 6 countries voted by phone instead of the normal juries.
The Finnish party in the aquarium in Birmingham was one small highlight – this must have cost a fortune! But it probably was one of the most exotic locations for a party. Pity their entry “Aava” was not really my cup-a-tea, reminded me too much of the Norwegian Eurovision winner of 1995.
Because I did not stay until the end, I left Birmingham without obtaining all the entries on CD – I missed 3 – Germany, Israel and France. Luckily I was able to get them all later through other people.
Interesting is that someone made a Grand Prix compilation of the entries – all 25 and live from the performance.
Musically the highlights were
Estonia – Mere Lapsed – Koit Toome
Sweden – Karleken ar – Jill Johnson
Macedonia – Ne zori zoro – Vlado Janevski
Slovakia – Modlitba – Katarina Hasporva
Romania – Eu cred – Malina Olinescu
And of course the biggest horror
Germany – Guildo hat euch lieb – Guildo Horn
But other dislikes were
France – Ou aller – Marie Line
United Kingdom – Where are you – Imaani
EUROVISION 1997 – DUBLIN – IRELAND
Going back to Ireland so soon was not that special. Ireland had won so many times in a relatively short span of time, so it was sort of boring. One good thing was that the venue was the same and I booked again at the same guest house where I stayed in 1995. This time I did not take chances with my flight and no Sudan airways. I flew British airways to London and then to Dublin. I however had a bad flight. There are many things I do not eat, so I always book a special meal. They slipped up and did not book it and the air hostess dare to tell me “This is not a restaurant, you have to eat what we have”. I was of course furious but not much I could do.
The Eurovision itself made up for this. 1997 was the year I got all the individual CD singles the fastest ever. By now the various delegations became aware of me, the only accredited journalist from Africa. I also were doing radio shows for the Greek/Cyprus radio station in South Africa (Radio Hellenic) and the Portuguese radio station in South Africa (Radio Cidade). Although I liked it a lot to do shows about Eurovision to these stations, the problem was that both were mainly interested in their entries and did not care about the entries of say Norway or Finland.
Very special to me was the fact that I met up with Ralph Siegel again – the last time I saw him was in Munich in 1983. He was there as composer for the German entry “Zeit” sung by Bianca Shimburg who sounded like a Celine Dion to me.
1997 also produced a huge winner – LOVE SHINE A LIGHT by Katrina and the waves and with Myrian Stockley from South Africa as one of the backing singers. I did not speak a lot to her – going to Eurovision surely was not to meet up with other South Africans when I could meet so many other people from all over Europe. I anyway hated the hit she had in South Africa with her sister a few years earlier as the Stockley sisters. Finnish singer Heidi Kyro covered Love shine a light in Finnish as “Paivanvaloon” which I regard as one of the best Finnish covers ever.
At that stage very few people knew it would be Italy’s last participation before their return in 2011. Luckily the Portuguese radio station was interested in an interview with Jalisse so I did interview them – but of course today I won’t recognize them and they also won’t recognize me.
Iceland caused some controversy with their entry by Pal Oscar. He was such a nice person to chat to and he gave me two of his CD’s. I was the first South African he has met.
I nearly lost a toe in the stampede to get the Hungarian CD single when someone quite heavy stepped on my right foot and I lost several toenails.
I admired one guy from the UK who was unable to get accreditation and he bought several copies of Love shine a light and stood most of the time at the artist entry to the venue and was able to get almost every entry in a CD swap – he giving them the UK entry in exchange for their entry.
I was looking forward to meet the Dutch composer Ed Hooijmans who had written several Dutch songs I like (for non Eurovision artists). But as he has a fear of flying, he was unable to come to Dublin. The Dutch press conference was quite interesting with the 5 females from Mrs Einstein who did not understand that although the press conference room was 90% packed with male journalists, very few asked questions. One of them joked and said “Do you want to know the size of our bra’s”. A journalist sitting in front of me then whispered to his friend “We’re more interested in the size of the jock straps of the guys from Blond” (the group from Sweden). It was already quite clear in those years that the majority of journalists at Eurovision are gay.
The bookmakers had Denmark’s entry by Cool Kai as their candidate for zero points, but the singer even made fun of it and had a party with that fact as its theme. It did not end up last and with zero points but I do not like rap and so it was my bottom song for 1997.
A disaster hit me on my return to Johannesburg. I had taken tons of photo’s and handed it in at my local CNA for development. There were 10 films of 36 photo’s each. When I went to collect them, they informed me that not a single photo came out, the films were destroyed and they blamed it on the airport security. That was the end of me taking photo’s at Eurovision.
Musically 1997 brought the following great songs
United Kingdom – Love shine a light – Katrina & the waves
Cyprus – Mana moy – Hara & Andreas Konstantinou
Ireland – Mysterious woman – Marc Roberts
Poland – Ale jestem – Anna Maria Jopek
Bosnia – Goodbye – Alma Cardzic
Malta – Let me fly – Debbie Scerri
I only hated two songs from 1997
Austria – One step – Bettina Soriat
Denmark – Stemmem I mit liv – Cool Kai
GIRL GROUPS FROM GERMANY PART 3
The Hornettes were established in 1980, originally with Gitta Walther , Dagmar Hellberg , Lucy Neale (aka Lucy O’Day) and Christina Harrison . Except Hellberg, all the others were previously members of the 1978 band Love Generation . They got Reiner Pietsch to produce their first record.Late during 1980, Dagmar Hellberg left and was replaced by Linda G. Thompson . In 1981, the quartet was in the German preliminary decision to Euro Vision Song Contest with the Ralph Siegel composed song MANNEQUIN and reached the second place. The lyrics was written by Bernd Meinunger and this remains the most successful of all Hornettes releases and was twelve weeks in the German music charts with a top ranking at No. 27. In the same year they released Waikiki Tamoure, also produced by Ralph Siegel. This song spent six weeks more in the German charts, but only reached place 52. In 1982, their debut album We Are on the Way appeared on Jupiter Records. In 1983, the quartet with the song Hello, Mr. Radio appeared in the Austrian preliminary decision to Euro Vision Song Contest in and took third place.
TOP 10 EUROVISION ARTISTS DUETS
By Steve Humphreys (Australia)
One of my favourite moments from back in Vienna 2015, was seeing just how well contestants Mans Zelmerlow (Sweden) & Guy Sebastian (Australia) got on together during that week. Then this great freindship even transcended onto the Eurovision scoreboard, when both countries gave each other 12 points. There was even talk of a future duet between Mans and Guy, that would be special. This has got me thinking how many times has two stars of the past Eurovision Song Contests have actually got together to make a duet? besides covering a Eurovision entry, itself.
So I did some searching around and came up with my own
Top 10 Eurovision artists duets.
1. Maria Haukaas Storeng & Måns Zelmerlöw- ‘Precious to Me’
2. Christer Björkman & Shirley Clamp- La Vie/ This is My Life
3. Agnetha Faltskog & Tomas Ledin- Never Again
4. Johnny Logan & Nicole – No One Makes Love like You/Niemand liebt so wie du
(composed by Ralph Siegel and Bernd Meinunger)
5. Elisabeth Andreassen & Tor Endresen- All over the World (MGP 15)
6. Olivia Newton-John & Cliff Richard- Suddenly (From Xanadu movie)
7. Timoteij Feat Alexander Rybak-Vända Med Vinden
8. Malena Ernman & Sarah Dawn Finer – Sancta Lucia (2013)
9. Jan Johansen & Jill Johnson- Let it be me
10. Anita Skorgan Med Jahn Teigen- Friendly
If you know of some other Eurovision duets, let us know in the comments,
Footnote: When putting this Top 10 together I realised that just one artist that actually technically should not be on the list, as they have not appeared on a Eurovision Song Contest stage, Who is that?
that’s Timoteij. I think this is okay as I recon they will make it to Eurovision one year in the not too distant future.(fingers crossed) (also the fantastic Sarah Dawn Finer made it as an interval act in Malmo)
COMPOSERS PAGES – NEW DEVELOPMENTS
From tomorrow the composer page will split into THREE, one for RALPH SIEGEL, one for BERND MEINUNGER and one for BJORN & BENNY. These three have written so many songs that to have all 3 on one page becomes a little bulky. Only these 3 will be worked on prior to Vienna and after Vienna in the quiet Eurovision period, I will start on other composers, notable those from Sweden. As you can understand, this is a long term project and it is not something that can be done overnight. But it is such fun for me, today I entered some Bjorn and Benny songs in Czech and Slovak – so exotic. There are also 12 of so by SUCHI KIDS, sung in Dutch.
COMPOSER’S PAGE
The idea is that as many of the Eurovision composers will be listed in our library but as you can imagine, this is a huge task. Big progress has been made with that of RALPH SIEGEL and BERND MEININGER and I plan to so do BJORN & BENNY before Vienna. All others will only be looked at after the 2015 Eurovision and will work on it during the low season of Eurovision in June, July and August.