Nana Mouskouri thanks her audience on her 90th birthday
Published: Tuesday, Oct 8th 2024, 10:10
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At 90, pop icon Nana Mouskouri can look back on a successful career. She is regarded by many as the voice of Greece. Her trademark is her black glasses. For her birthday, she is releasing an album - as a thank you to everyone who has accompanied her.
She has released over 1,600 songs in more than 20 languages and over 130 albums. And more than 300 gold, diamond and platinum records - making her one of the biggest names in her business. To mark her 90th birthday on October 13, Nana Mouskouri has now released another album, "Happy Birthday Nana". As a thank you to all those who have accompanied her for so long.
Time travel through a 65-year career
A best-of album that is a journey through time through her more than 65-year music career, in which the beginning of a farewell also quietly resonates. The Greek-born singer, who lives in Athens, Paris and Geneva, told the German Press Agency that she is grateful to be able to do what she has done so far. At her age, however, she could no longer make any big plans for the future, she said openly. Does age scare her? "I've never thought about my age. Or if I did, then like others."
Mouskouri has often tried to say goodbye to the big stage. More than 15 years ago. As she said at the time, she had the feeling that she was getting older. But without singing, she felt useless and empty. And so she continued to sing: "Music is her first love and will remain her last, as she has always said.
"Happy Birthday Nana" comprises 21 songs. These include her favorite and best-known German-language songs such as "Guten Morgen Sonnenschein", "Johnny Tambour" and "Weisse Rosen aus Athen", with which she became famous in German-speaking countries. It is also one of the three new songs recorded with the Royal Symphonic Orchestra London.
Mouskouri became a star in Germany of all places, in a country of which she has not only good memories. Between 1941 and 1944, Greece was occupied by Nazi Germany. The conquest of her homeland by the German Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS was bloody. But today Mouskouri loves Germany.
From enemy to friend
A historic event from 1961 contributed to this. It was the year when the Wall was built, which was to separate the GDR from the FRG for the following decades. At that time, she came to Berlin to record the song "Weisse Rosen aus Athen". The recording studio was located in the western part of Berlin on Potsdamer Platz. As she left the building, she saw people waving handkerchiefs from the other side.
"That made my heart ache and reminded me of what had happened back then," says Mouskouri. It made her realize that people were suffering here too. The single, which was released in 1961, sold more than 1.5 million copies within six months. It earned the singer her first gold record.
She later discovered the Wall from the other side too. Because in the 1980s, she brought her concerts to the GDR, where she sang "Das Lied der Freiheit" (The Song of Freedom), among other things, as she said in conversation. The symbolic title is also present on her new album.
Singer and politician
Mouskouri was born in Crete in 1934. Her father belonged to a resistance movement against the German occupiers and was a projectionist in a cinema where her mother also worked. At the age of three, she moved to Athens with her family, and at the age of six she experienced the occupation of Greece by the Germans.
Her parents had to work hard to ensure that she and her eldest sister were allowed to go to the conservatory in Athens. In 1959, she won first prize in the Greek singing competition. Her global hit "White Roses from Athens" followed two years later.
The musician was also interested in politics. In the 1990s, she was elected to the European Parliament for the conservative Greek party Nea Dimokratia. After the end of the legislative period, she gave up: "I was disappointed with politics," as she repeatedly said. She became a Unicef ambassador in 1993.
In her biography "Stimme der Sehnsucht: My Memories", published in 2008, she goes into detail about her childhood and youth, the war and the hardships. She describes the story of a shy teenager full of complexes who was only inspired by her passion for singing.
Music has become her accomplice, she said in one of her earlier interviews. On stage, she learned to express herself through singing.
The famous glasses
Her black glasses are probably the most famous in the world next to Elton John's. They have not only corrected her vision problems. The optical aid that has become her trademark has also protected Mouskouri from her shyness. Dark glasses have given her courage, as she has previously explained.
She was the first major artist to appear in public wearing glasses. She was often asked to take them off. "I never did it because I'm short-sighted," she told the newspaper "Le Parisien". The glasses never served to give her style.
Her songs are about love, hope, sadness and happiness. Universal themes that everyone can identify with. For her, this is also one of the reasons for her success: "Music has to be connected to people, people have to hear the emotions in the songs."
Their new album also includes the new recording "Pios échi Dakria". The song is composed in the style of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind". A song as a source of profound consolation.
What does she want for her birthday? She is happy about everything she has achieved in life. She is a child who has grown up with music.
©Keystone/SDA
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