Sunday, February 22, 2015

Amazing Estonian Voices



Acapella coverversion of last years Estonian Eurovision entry by Tanja, recorded for this years National final show.

Tanja's original Eurovision performance may have been a bit of a hit 'n' miss (and missed out on the final), but the original studio track remains my favorite song of the 2014 contest. All details and trivia on Amazing and its releases and versions can be found here at the Copenhagen Collection.

Estonia don't disappoint in 2015 either. Check out all about the totally wonderful Goodbye To Yesterday by Stig Rästa and Elina Born here at the Vienna Collection.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Goodbye to Lesley Gore (1946 - 2015)

American singer Lesley Gore has passed away. She's probably most known for her hits It's My Party and You Don't Own Me but she also recorded an English version of the 1968 Eurovision winner La La La by Massiel.
Lesley Gore had 19 US top 100 hits and will have her place in music history forever, at least for those two songs.
In 2009 the singer was featured in a Eurocovers post, which you can read again below.

1968: La La La And I'll Cry If I Want To

La La La, the Spanish Eurovision winner by Massiel from 1968 is a well covered song.
Last year or so 'news' came out that it had won because the Generalo, Franco, bribed some juries because he wanted Spain to win.
All Allegedly of course, and I have a hard time believing the story. Cliff Richard didn't win, get over it.

La La La was a song of controversy all along. First the original singer Joan Manuel Serrat was sent packing because he insisted on singing the song in Catalan, later Massiel was critisized over her way too short dress which disgraced the Spanish people in Europe. Today the song is still ridiculed for the amount of La's that are in it, but somewhere deep inside there's a message, of freedom even...

Eurovision singer Massiel recorded the song in Spanish, French, German and English. Original singer Serrat recorded Spanish, English, French, Italian and Portuguese. Serrat's Catalan version was recorded for a radio show many years later, but it has never been released on record.

La La La is written by Ramón Arcusa and Manuel De La Calva, also known as Dúo Dinámico. Coverversions were recorded in at least 20 languages and the list includes version by Eurovision stars Gitte, Kirsti Sparboe with Arne Bendiksen and Oddvar, Edina Pop and Heidi Brühl.
With over 140 coverversions the song sits neatly inside the top 20 of most covered Eurovision songs. Youtube Eurovision Version.

It's My Party
Lesley Gore shot to fame with her first single It's My Party. A classic and a #1 hit in the US and a top 10 hit in many European countries. She followed it up with three more top 10 hits of which the feminist You Don't Own Me is probably the best known. Lesley Gore also recorded You Don't Own Me in French, German and Italian and Eurocovers loves that.
You Don't Own Me features heavily in the Bette Midler / Diane Keaton / Goldie Hawn movie The First Wives Club.

The song was the last Lesley Gore single to reach the US top 10 but she continued to score 16 more top 100 hits.

In 1968 she recorded the Eurovision winner as He Gives Me Love (La La La) and after two singles that failed to chart in the Billboard top 100, He Gives Me Love went to #91. It was her last top 100 hit. (Mercury 78219)

Lesley Gore continued recording in the 70's but after her 1982 cover album The Canvas Can Do Miracles it took over 20 years for her to get back in the studio.
In 2005 she recorded the album Ever Since which includes a stunning new version of You Don't Own Me and several new songs from Lesley Gore's own pen. Ever Since is available at Amazon and iTunes

Several Lesley Gore compilations are also available including a splendid 5CD box It's My Party! (Bear family) with all her 60's recordings, including several foreign language versions of her early hits.


links and sources
Lesley Gore Homepage - Fanclub.(since 1965, remarkable!)
Youtubes: It's My Party - You Don't Own Me
Lesley Gore - La La La Discogs page




Sunday, February 15, 2015

Il Volo book a flight to Vienna and honor the Italian classics

Il Volo have won the 2015 edition of the Sanremo contest with the song Grande Amore. The trio have stated they will be the Italian representatives in Vienna, but it is not confirmed Grande Amore will be the Eurovision song. (well, now it is..ed.)

A 7 track CD Sanremo Grande Amore will is released on februari 17. It includes the winning Sanremo song and also coverversions of two ancient Italian Eurovision songs. See full tracklist below.

Young operatic trio Il Volo are Piero Barone (Tenor), Ignazio Boschetto (Tenor) and Gianluca Ginoble (Baritone).
They met in 2009 when they were individual participants at Ti Lascio Una Canzone, a singing competition on RAI TV.

Il Volo have released four official albums and several digital singles.
Their 2010 (2011 in most countries) debut album Il Volo (produced by Tony Renis) was a worldwide success.
It was a #1 album in Austria and #2 in New Zealand. It reached the album top 10 in Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium and the USA. Plus a #18 in Australia and 43 in the U.K..
The trio also recorded the album in Spanish, which scored well the charts in Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia and Puerto Rico.

The albums Il Volo, We Are Love and live album Il Volo... Takes Flight: Live from
the Detroit Opera House, are re-issued on februari 24 in a boxset titled the Platinum collection.

Links and sources
Il Volo at the Vienna Collection
Il Volo Website and FB
Find some more tenors and baritones here at Eurocovers:
I Quatro - Luciano Pavarotti and G4 - Mouslim Magomaev - Ingvar Wixell

Tracklist CD Sanremo Grande Amore
Grande Amore
- Sanremo 2015 winner
Ancora
- 1981 Sanremo song originally by Eduardo De Crescenzo
Vacanze romane (2015 Version)
- 1983 single by Matia Bazar from (in my opinion) their best and utterly amazing album Tango.
Canzone Per Te (2015 Version)
- Sanremo winner from 1968, originally by Sergio Endrigo who went on to Eurovision the same year, but with another song Marianne.
Piove (2015 Version)
- Domenico Modugno's second Sanremo winner and Eurovision entry from 1959
Romantica
- 1960 Sanremo winning song that was the Eurovision entry by Renato Rascel. 
L'immensità (2015 Version)
- 1967 Sanremo song originally by Don Backy and by Johnny Dorelli

Check out more about the 2015 Eurovision hopefuls at the Vienna Collection.
Quick links to all countries:

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Die Oue Musikant (Afrikaans) - Marnie

Oh well, the video is removed, but I'll leave the rest here anyway...

Someone uploaded this to the Tube and made me very happy.
It's the Afrikaans coverversion of the Dutch 1973 entry De Oude Muzikant by Ben Cramer.
This version was released on a single in 1974 (Philips TOS 1010, South Africa).
I'm quite sure this version uses the original backing track.

Marnie is an early artists name of Manuel Escorcio. Under his own name he (later) recorded coverversions of Volare, Piove, All Kind Of Everything, Halleluja, Ein Bisschen Frieden and Io Senza Te.
See full Eurocovers discography below.


Still looking for the b-side though (well, and the actual vinyl single). The b-track Sylvia Kom Dans Met My is a coverversion of one of Ben Cramers National Final songs that was also the flipside to his own releases.

Marnie / Manuel Escorcio Eurocovers Discography
Italy 1958 Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare) - Domenico Modugno
- Volare (Portuguese) on CD Iets Vir Almal (Select SELBCD 154)
Italy 1959 Piove (Ciao Ciao Bambina) - Domenico Modugno
- Italian on CD Iets Vir Almal (Select SELBCD 154)
Ireland 1970 - All Kinds Of Everything - Dana
- Soveel Herinner My (Afrikaans) on LP Hei Monique
Netherlands 1973 - De Oude Muzikant - Ben Cramer
- as Marnie - Die Oue Musikant, single (Philips TOS 1010)
- Single also has Ben Cramer pre-song Kom Sylvia Dans Met My,
Israel 1979 - Halleluja - Milk And Honey
- on LP Manuel Escorcio With The Drakenberg Seunskoor (1984 Transistor CBK 7031)
Switzerland 1981 - Io Senza Te - Peter, Sue and Marc.
Me Without You (English) on LP Musica (1983,Transistor  CBK 7011)
Germany 1982 - Ein Bisschen Frieden - Nicole
- A Little Peace (English) on LP Romance (Select SEL 106)

Links and Sources:
Manuel Escorcio website and Facebook
If you want to find out more about Eurocovers in Afrikaans, just follow this link and you'll get the posts with South African stars doing your favorite Eurovision tunes
Also check out our Facebook page and the Vienna Collection

Monday, December 22, 2014

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Some moody Finnish music for the winter.



Lovely new version of the first ever Finnish entry, still a classic at home.
And a new classic in the making: a Finnish version of Dutch 2014 entry Calm After The Storm

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

R.I.P John Holt



Jamaican singer John Holt passed away October 19, aged 67.
Here's an audio of his coverversion of Warum Nur Warum by Udo Jürgens (Austria's entry of 1964), maybe better known as Walk Away made famous by Matt Monro.

Holt also recorded Sandie's Puppet On A String.

John Holt had several hits with coverversions of other peoples songs, but his biggest claim to fame probably is The Tide Is High which Holt wrote and recorded with his band The Paragons. The song was covered by Blondie and by Atomic Kitten who both took it to the Number 1 spot of the U.K. charts.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Polle & Myrthe - Calm after the storm



The Kids Are Alright!. Here's Polle and Myrthe doing a younger version of the Common Linnets' Eurovision hit Calm After The Storm.

Junior fans may know Polle from his 2011 participation in the Dutch preselection for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. His Music In My Heart stranded in the first semi.

It was an unexpected pleasure to see the Netherlands end the runner up at the Copenhagen contest, but the commercial success of Calm After The Storm is even more surprising. The song went top 10 in many countries' charts and is still in the top 10 in Germany and Austria (August 2014).
It was also the first ever #1 hit for a Dutch entry in the Belgian (Flemish) charts.

Find out more about Calm After The Storm, the chart history, the cdsingles, versions and the acclaimed hit album The Common Linnets here at the Copenhagen Collection

More Calm After The Storm coverversions
Zuwer Scheerwol - Pien In Mien Haart (Pain In My Heart, sung in Gronings,Dutch regional language)
- on CD Doalders (2015, Amlow records 0150028)
Lisa del Bo and Eli  - Stilte na de storm (Flemish)
- on CD Voor Een Moeder, Door Een Moeder (APR Works 217)
Howard Carpendale (English, live)
- on CD Das ist unsere Zeit - Live aus Berlin
Sonja Maria (English)
- on CD Last Chance Texaco 
Uwe Müller (English)
- on CD Ein Weihnachtstraum von Uwe Müller 2017 Live!
Josh Oudendijk (English)
- on CD Nylon
Peter Simon Company (English)
- on CD Harvest
Urban Beach (English)
- on CD Urban Vibes-Live in Hamburg
Gab Veläzques (English)
- on CD The Remixes (Ethernal works)
Asher Quinn (English)
- on CD Sun, Sorrow, Flowers, Moon
Ben Ransom (English)
- on digital album Ben Ransom Live
Erica from Drifters and Andreas from Sannex  - Lugn Efter En Storm (Swedish)
- on CD Blå blå Känslor (Drifters)   (Neptun Records)
Tommi Soidinmäki ja Saija Tuupanen - Myrskyn Jälkeen Kirkastuu (Finnish)
- digital release (Magnum music)
Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir (Sylvia Night) & Magni Ásgeirs - Þegar storminn hefur lægt (Icelandic)
- digital release (Magnaðir ehf, 2018)
Frankie Zhyrnov a Lenka Ambrožová (Violin + Saxophone instrumental)
- on CD Memory

Cheap xerox versions under different names like The Campfires, Mix factor, MC Flipside, New Tribute Kings, Clara Oaks, Cream Cuts etc. also exist but are crap.


Polle FB, at KidsTop20 and Youtube channel.

Sunday, August 03, 2014

Eisenhauer - One For Me



cdsingle
Above video is a coverversion of the Hungarian 2013 entry Kedvesem by ByeAlex

It's sung in English by Eisenhauer and is titled One For Me.
The track wass released in May 2014 in Germany. The cdsingle includes four versions of the song.
One For Me - single version
One For Me - Thomas Lizzara mix
One For Me - "One Love" remix
One For Me - Karaoke
Out on Rhingtön (Universal Music), also available at your usual digital outlets.

Kedvesem ended 10th in the final in Malmö.
Read all about the original song and its versions here at the Malmö Collection.
For a coverversion by Swedish Eurovision singer Jan Johansen go here at Eurocovers.
Special thanks to Ivor Lyttle.

Monday, June 23, 2014

2014 My Słowianie - Metal And Muscles



Polish 2014 Eurovision stars Donatan Cleo and their Slavic Girls brought you Boobs, and the viewing rates for the contest went up by 15.000.000. But what do real men love even more than Boobs? Yes, Metal, Full Growl Metal to be more specific.

My Słowianie, this years 'The Song That Keeps On Giving' is covered in this amazing version by Sławek Wyłup and Mateusz Trojak in the clip above. 
And if the growling vocals are too much for you, you can also listen to the Metal version mixed with Cleo's vocals. (Here at Youtube)

There's more Slavic fun to be had, V-Unit, Polish hip-hop rappers, have recorded a 'parody' (Youtube here also has a free download link). It deals with a whole other set of prejudices than the Donatan Cleo version, involving testosteron and stealing wallets. And instead of boobs there's muscles, very big muscles.

The V-Unit track was also remixed as My Słowianie (Odpowiedź mężczyzn) and that one is released on their CD Bękarty Internetuon (also on Spotify).

A rock'n'roll version of My Słowianie was recorded by Late Again. I don't know if it has been released officially, but here's a Youtube of the studioversion. Nice.
Late Again facebook

There are many more parodies of My Słowianie. Here's one with some Polish firefighters already clocking over 2.000.000 views.

Donatan (and) Cleo have recorded quite a few fab versions and remixes in Polish and English themselves. You can find out all about these here at the Copenhagen Collection.

And if anyone has a copy of the Donatan Cleo cd single to spare / sell, think of me, My life is not complete without it.