N°85 NANA MOUSKOURI - GOING HOME

Fleet Foxes were singing about Mykonos and that’s a Greek island so I thought I’d go searching in the history of Greek singers and came up with THE Greek singer all times: Nana Mouskouri. Nana, as I may call her, is born in 1934 on Crete, another Greek isle but she grew up in the capital of Greece. At the age of 78 it is logical she doesn’t perform anymore yet again she quit only recently in 2008 after her last tour. She was 74 then . There was only one single concert given since 2008. A 50-year career celebration concert in Berlin.

Nana is a multilinguist and she recorded almost 1500 songs in different languages. Some of her original songs she re-recorded in different languages for release in their respective countries. All together she has recorded about 175 albums. Not all of them unique since many of them were also recorded in the natives tongue of the country of release. I’ve chosen an English song for the simple reason that I already have the newxt few links in mind. (for the next link just think of someone who was desperate to go home in 1982)

One of the songs you oughta know Nana from is Ennio Morricone’s composed ‘Once Upon A time In The West’ since she’s the singer accompanying the song. Nana has always been wanted for duets as well since her voice leant easily for it. She sung with Charles Aznavour, Cliff Richard, Julio Iglesias, Will Tura, Olivia Newton John, … I’m forgetting many. She also performed a few times on Eurovision Song Contests.

At a later stage in her music career she became politically motivated. It all started with a mandate as UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1993. For this cause she gave a few fund raising concerts and donate the profits to UNICEF for charity work. A Year later Nana got elected for the European Parliament where she’d be seated for almost five years.

Allright, time to listen to one of the biggest ladies in the music buisiness ever.