 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Nana
Mouskouri |
Esther
Ofarim |
Francoise Hardy |
Matt
Monro |
|
"A Force De Prier" |
"T'en Va Pas" |
"L'amour s'en va" |
"I Love The Little Things" |
|
08/16 |
02/16 |
05/16 |
02/16 |
|
Greek Songstress Nana moved to Paris in
1963 to further her career and in no time was signed up
by Luxembourg TV to sing their song in London. Nana
finished 8th but her song was a middling continental hit
and was instrumental in furthering her career. |
Israeli born Esther sang for Switzerland
and was set to win the 1963 contest until Norway was
called in to vote again, switching its votes and giving
victory to Denmark. Five years later Esther would hook
up with hubbie Abi for the smash "Cinderella Rockerfella" |
As if Nana and Esther weren't enough, the
1963 contest was also blessed by the presence of this
legendary chanteuse (and none of them won!). Like the
other two stars she sang for another country, in this
case Monaco. |
Classic crooner Matt finished second in
Naples behind the epic "Non Ho L'Eta" and sadly no
recording of the contest remains. His song also is
one of the handful to not chart in the UK. Matt liked the
Austrian entry so much he recorded an English version
"Walk Away" which was a major hit.
|
| 1963 |
1963 |
1963 |
1964 |
| |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Julio
Iglesias |
Patrick Juvet |
Olivia
Newton-John |
The
Shadows |
|
"Gwendolyne" |
"Je Vais Me Marier Marie" |
"Long Live Love" |
"Let Me Be The One" |
|
04/12 |
12/17 |
04/17 |
02/19 |
|
The Spanish megastar's singing career
kicked off about the time he appeared in a powder blue suit
on the Amsterdam stage in the "boycott" contest of 1970.
He forgot part of the lyric which may be one reason why
he couldn't make it a hat-trick of Spanish wins.
|
Before going disco and hooking up with
the team behind Village People in the late seventies,
Juvet had cultivated a promising career in Francophone
countries, although his ESC effort for his native
Switzerland trailed home twelfth of seventeen.
|
Olivia was a staple of BBC light
entertainment at the start of the seventies, but it
was still surprising that she agreed to do Eurovision as
her American success had already begun. She bitterly
disliked her song, but she gave it her best and fourth
in a very strong contest behind Abba was no disgrace at
all. |
The man behind many of Olivia's
successes, John Farrar, entered the contest a year
later as a member of the reformed Shadows, whose Euro
line-up included originals Hank Marvin and Bruce Welsh,
who fluffed his lines at the beginning of the song.
|
| 1970 |
1973 |
1974 |
1975 |
| |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Silver
Convention |
Baccara |
Colm
Wilkinson |
Black
Lace |
|
"Telegram" |
"Parlez-Vous Francais?"
|
"Born To Sing" |
"Mary Ann" |
|
08/18 |
07/20 |
05/20 |
07/19 |
|
These three German lasses were briefly
huge in the early days of disco, but their records were
largely instrumental. They had a US number one in 1975
and actually won a R&B grammy for "Fly Robin
Fly"(!). Thankfully their Euro song was more wordy, but
as happened often, the juries didn't go for disco.
|
Just a year after the chart topping "Yes
Sir I Can Boogie", the hit Spanish duo were poached by
Luxembourg to sing a song that was basically a rehash of
their biggest hit and was composed by the same team. As
the year before the jurors reaction to disco was
lukewarm but the song became a sizeable hit. |
Clive James famously dissed Colm's
somewhat manic Euro performance in his TV column, but
the Irishman had the last laugh. He appeared on
the Parisian stage as "C.T. Wilkinson", and went on to
create the classic role of Jean Valjean in Les
Miserables on Broadway and
the West End. |
The duo who gave the world "Agadoo" et al
started their road to glory in 1979, when their UK final
win was not broadcast due to a BBC strike. After three
rounds of voting in Jerusalem they were actually leading
the contest, but after that the votes started to dry up.
|
| 1977 |
1978 |
1978 |
1979 |
| |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Ofra
Haza |
Plastic Bertrand |
Samantha Janus |
Secret
Garden |
|
02/20 |
21/22 |
10/22 |
01/23 |
|
Ofra completed her military service in
1979 and then embarked on a pop career. Her 1983 Euro
song "Chai" finished second in Munich, the site of the
massacre of Israeli athletes a decade earlier, and she
became a national heroine. As the 80s progressed
so did her fame beyond Israel. |
A full ten years after "Ca Plane Pour Moi",
Belgian Bertrand popped up for serial foreigner-scouting
Luxembourg in a contest staged in his homeland. Sadly
his return was a huge flop as he accrued just four
points (half of them from the UK), leaving him one place
above last. |
The familiar face of Eastenders, Game On
and Liverpool One first came to attention in 1991 when
she won Song For Europe with a ditty about hunger and
poverty, performed in a short skirt and dangly earrings.
It soon became clear that her future lay in acting. |
The most recent case of Eurovision
kicking off a significant career, Norway caused
consternation in 1995 when entering a "song" that was
almost entirely instrumental. In an era when
anything Irish struck gold, they took the crown by both
sounding Irish and having an Irish violinist!. |
| 1983 |
1987 |
1991 |
1995 |
