Picture Sleeves, Moscow 2009

The Moscow Weeks
In a week the delegations of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest will be boarding their private jets for Moscow. Watch out for a few Moscow Weeks posts soon at Eurocovers. In the meantime getting Moscow 2009 sorted is taking up a lot of time, so today you'll have to do with some picture sleeves only. I found these over the years at the net, e-bay etcetera, but I don't have the records or even recordings. But I think they're worth having a look at so I though I'd share them to kill the time to 12 - 14 - 16 May.


The Moscow Collection
As you have noticed by now, over at my other blog you can find all details on the releases of the 2009 contest. Versions, Picture sleeves, Release info, Charts, Links, it's all there and constantly updated.
The latest updates include:
Greece - Sakis Rouvas This Is Our Night Album info
Moldova: Three remixes online at Nelly Ciubano Website
Andorra cdsingle out now, remix
Macedonia - English and Serbian versions online, promo info
Ukraine: Anti Crisis Girl, Russian version
Bosnia Hercegovina: Bistra Voda, download Russian and English
Serbia, Cipela!, more versions: French, Russian, Greek, English, Hebrew & Finnish!
Turkey: Hadise in the Belgian charts (and out again)
Russia, new Eurovision version online
Malta: Chiara promo

The picture seeves above feature coverversions of Puppet On A String (U.K. 1967), Yo Soy Aquel (Spain 1966), Congratulations (U.K. 1968), I Belong (U.K. 1965) and Sol De Inverno (Portugal 1965).

Spring is in the air: Street version of O Julissi Na Jalini

Today i bumped into an unexpected Eurocover on the streets of Utrecht, NL. And after a little browse, I found a similar recording already on YouTube.
Belgian 2008 entry 'O Julissi Na Jalini' wasn't a triumph for Ishtar at the Belgrade contest, but the song turns out to be immortal anyway.
I'm sure this clip is not the same organ as the one I saw today, but I do know the lady in this clip is Soetkin, Ishtars lead singer.

From Matterhorn to Mount Kenya: Swiss Lady

Eurocovers likes the world and the unlikely pairings of music styles coming from all over it.
One I could never have dreamt up myself is Swiss Lady by Them Mushrooms.
Pepe Lienhard and his band sang Swiss Lady back in 1977 and it was a bit of an horny affair, as the Lady in case is the ever popular folkloristic instrument from the Alps: The Alpenhorn. It was of course the Swiss entry and it ended 6th at the contest held in London.

Them Mushrooms are from Kenya and the band has been around since 1972.
After a good decade of hard work performing in hotels and clubs they have released 16 albums since 1980 (in various line-ups). They were (and are) a popular band, but superstardom in Kenya didn't mean immediate unlimited richess. They even had to borrow their instruments in the early years.

Their most popular song is Jambo Bwana (Hello Mister) from 1980. It was covered by many bands including Boney M., although Tha' Shrooms have never received a penny from Frank Farian for Jambo Hakuna Matata (insert the word allegedly at your own convenience)

The 2005 album Kazi Ni Kazi (Kelele records KE 31011) subtitles as Tribute To Bob Marley which is probably only because there is a track with that title on it.
It's this album that sports Eurocover Swiss Lady and it's an odd mellow journey from the Matterhorn to Mount Kenya, via Jamaica.

The band have ditched the name Them Mushrooms and go through life as Uyoga now. You can read more about them at Big Entertainment .

'When you play your music I'd like to be an Alphorn too': Swiss Lady is sung in English with a small part in Swahili.
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picture: Giant spliff prooves to be a hard draw.





Blog Tip
Treasure trove Faintly Blowing features an interesting LP. It's The Jet Liners at the Taj Mahal Bombay. The band is from Ceylon (Now Sri Lanka).
The LP has a gorgeous sleeve and there's 15 coverversions of popular songs like Zorba The Greek, Georgy Girl, This Is My Song (anoraks: written by Charlie Chaplin) and Eurocover Puppet On A String, the Sandie Shaw Eurovision winner from 1967.
(Avid readers know there's 1000's of Puppet On A String versions at Eurocovers).


Eurovision 2009 - The Moscow Collection
The Latest 2009 News At The Moscow Collection Blog:
Serbia, Cipela, Dance version now at RTS.
Albania: Carry Me In Your Dreams - promo sleeve
Azerbaijan: Always, single release details, sleeve
Bulgaria: download old & new versions, Deep Zone remixes
Iceland: Is It True promo sleeve
Spain: Soraya promo info.
U.K.: Jade: It's Time For Remixes, promo info
Lithuania: Sasha Song (!) Love to Moscow, Russian version
Finland - Lose Control remix info, cdsingle out now, # 1 hit

Que Bueno, Que Bueno !!!

Que Bueno, Que Bueno (Spain 1965 - Conchita Bautista)A great coverversion Mexico style by Los Tenientes and a cooler than cool garage beat version by Los Sirex. Both versions were released in 1965, the year of the original.
The Los Tenientes image is the Dutch edition picture sleeve, the Los Sirex single is from Spain.

An English version by Grethe and Jörgen Ingmann is in this Eurocovers post.

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Que Bueno, Que Bueno (utube) was Conchita Bautista's second Eurovision attempt. The first one was Spains debut entry Estando Contigo. You can find all Estando Contigo Eurocovers posts here.