| NANA
MOUSKOURI
(ARTIST BIOGRAPHY)
Ioana Mouskouri (Joanna in English; nicknamed "Nana" from a young
age) was born October 13, 1934, on the island of Crete, in the town
of Chania (or Carée in French). Her father worked as a movie
projectionist, and moved the family to Athens when she was three.
Much of her childhood was colored by the Nazi occupation of Greece
-- during which time her father worked for the resistance movement
-- and the four-year civil war that broke out on the heels of World
War II. She started taking singing lessons at age 12, and listened
regularly to radio broadcasts of American jazz singers (Frank
Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday in particular) and
French chanson stars (Edith Piaf, etc.). In 1950, Mouskouri was
accepted into the Athens Conservatory, where she studied classical
music with an emphasis on singing opera. In 1957, it was discovered
that Mouskouri had been singing with a jazz group by night, and she
was summarily kicked out of the Conservatory.
Mouskouri began singing jazz in nightclubs, concentrating especially
on Ella Fitzgerald repertory. In 1958, she met the emerging
songwriter Manos Hadjidakis, who would become her mentor in the
field of popular music, and recorded an EP featuring four of his
compositions for a small record label that year. The following year
she performed his "Kapou Iparchi Agapi Mou" (co-written with poet
Nikos Gatsos) at the inaugural Greek Song Festival; it won first
prize, and Mouskouri's high-profile performance began to make a name
for her. At the 1960 festival, she performed two more Hadjidakis
compositions, "Timoria" and "Kiparissaki," which tied for first
prize; not long after, she made her first appearance outside of
Greece at the Mediterranean Song Festival, held in Barcelona. She
performed the Kostas Yannidis composition "Xypna Agapi Mou," which
again won first prize, and attracted interest from several
international record companies. She wound up signing with the Paris-based
Philips-Fontana axis.
In 1961, Mouskouri sang on the soundtrack of a German documentary
about Greece, which resulted in the German-language single "Weisse
Rosen aus Athen" ("The White Rose of Athens"). Adapted from a folk
melody by Manos Hadjidakis, it was an enormous hit, selling over a
million copies in Germany; later translated into several different
languages, it went on to become one of her signature tunes. In 1962,
she met producer Quincy Jones, who flew her to New York to record an
album of American standards titled The Girl From Greece Sings; not
long after, she had a sizable U.K. hit with the pop standard "My
Colouring Book." In 1963, she settled permanently in Paris and
recorded a Greek-language album; she also sang Luxembourg's entry in
the Eurovision Song Contest that year, "À Force de Prier," which
became an international hit, and helped win her the prestigious
Grand Prix du Disque in France. She attracted the notice of composer
Michel Legrand, who supplied her with two major French hits in "Les
Parapluies de Cherbourg" (1964) and "L'Enfant au Tambour" (1965).
Also in 1965, she recorded her second English-language album in
America, Nana Sings, and found a patron in Harry Belafonte, who
brought her on tour with him through 1966, and teamed with her for
the live duo album An Evening With Belafonte/Mouskouri.
Mouskouri ascended to superstardom in France with her 1967 album Le
Jour Où la Colombe, which featured much of the core of her French
repertoire: "Au Coeur de Septembre," "Adieu Angélina," "Robe Bleue,
Robe Blanche," and a cover of the French pop classic "Le Temps des
Cerises," among others. Also scoring with a version of "Guantanamera,"
she made her first headlining appearance at Paris' legendary Olympia
concert theater that year, with a repertoire blending French pop,
Greek folk, and Manos Hadjidakis numbers. The following year, she
turned her attention to the British market, hosting a variety series
called Nana and Guests; in 1969, she released her first full-length
British LP, Over and Over, a smash hit that spent almost two years
on the charts. Already maintaining a heavy international touring
schedule in the late '60s, Mouskouri spent much of the '70s on the
road, broadening her worldwide popularity to levels rarely equaled.
In France, she released a series of top-selling albums that included
Comme un Soleil, Une Voix Qui Vient du Coeur, Vielles Chansons de
France, and Quand Tu Chantes, among others; she also recorded a
successful version of "Habanera," from Bizet's opera Carmen, in
tandem with Serge Lama. Elsewhere, her 1975 album Sieben Schwarze
Rosen was a significant success in Germany, and her English-language
album Book of Songs sold millions of copies worldwide.
Mouskouri had another English-language triumph with 1979's Roses and
Sunshine, which was particularly popular in Canada. She scored a
worldwide hit with 1981's "Je Chante Avec Toi, Liberté," which was
translated into several languages after its widespread success in
France, and also helped boost her hit German album Meine Lieder Sind
Meine Liebe. In 1984, Mouskouri returned to Greece for her first
live performance in her homeland since 1962; from then on, she would
record Greek-language albums for her home market. In 1986, Mouskouri
recorded "Only Love," the theme song to a BBC TV series that went on
to top the U.K. charts; it was also a hit in the French translation
"L'Amour en Héritage." That same year, Mouskouri made a play for the
Spanish-language market with the hit single "Con Todo el Alma," a
major success in Spain, Argentina, and Chile. She released five
albums in different languages in 1987, and the following year
returned to her classical conservatory roots with the double LP The
Classical Nana (aka Nana Classique), which featured some of her
favorite opera excerpts.
Mouskouri's 1991 English-language compilation Only Love: The Best of
Nana Mouskouri became her best-selling release in the United States,
which had long been the toughest market for her to crack. She spent
much of the '90s continuing her rigorous global touring schedule,
while recording regularly in French, German, Spanish, English, and
Greek. Among her early-'90s albums were the spirituals collection
Gospel (1990), the Spanish-language Nuestras Canciones, the
multilingual, Mediterranean-themed Côté Sud, Côté Coeur (1992), the
self-explanatory Falling in Love Again: Great Songs From the Movies
(which reunited her with Harry Belafonte on two songs), and the
French Dix Mille Ans Encore. She also dedicated herself to public
works, becoming a spokesperson for UNICEF in 1993 and gaining
election to the European Parliament as a Greek representative from
1994-1999.
She recorded several more albums over 1996-1997, including the
Spanish-language Nana Latina (which featured duets with Julio
Iglesias and Mercedes Sosa), the English-language Return to Love,
and the French pop classics set Hommages. In 1997, she staged a high-profile
Concert for Peace at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New
York; it was later released as an album, and aired as a TV special
on PBS in America. Meanwhile, a number of Mouskouri retrospectives
appeared overseas, including elaborate box sets in both France and
Germany.
In 2006 she made a guest appearance at that year's Eurovision Song
Contest which was held, for the first time ever, in her native
Greece.
In the same year, she announced her plans to retire. From 2006 until
2008, she conducted a farewell concert tour of Europe, Australia,
Asia, South America, the United States, and Canada. On July 23,
2008, Mouskouri gave her final 'Farewell Concert' performance at the
ancient Herodes Atticus Theatre, in Athens, Greece, before a packed
stadium, including Greece's Prime Minister and Athens mayor, plus
the mayors of Berlin, Paris and Luxembourg, along with fans from
around the world and thousands of her Athenian admirers.
(Info mainly AMG)
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