The 1966 Eurovision winner MERCI CHERIE by Udo Jurgens from Austria was covered by Nicole from Germany – unfortunately also in German. Nicole won Eurovision for Germany in 1982……
Tag Archives: Udo Jurgens
EUROVISION COVER – MERCI CHERIE (German)
The 1966 Eurovision winner MERCI CHERIE by Udo Jurgens from Austria was covered by Helene Fischer from Germany – unfortunately also in German
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdGSTCECKec
FOUR EUROVISION WINNERS at the German selection
Four ESC winners will be present at the Eurovision Song Contest – Unser Song 2017 on 9 February in Cologne.
Lena, who is one of jury members, will be joined by NICOLE, Ruslana Lyzhychko and Conchita Wurst. The three singers will perform a Medley of Eurovision winning songs, but not their own. Ruslana will sing Euphoria of Loreen, Conchita will sing Satellite of Lena and Nicole – “Merci Chérie” of Udo Jürgens.
Nicole won in 1982 with Ein bisschien frieden
Ruslana won in 2004 with Wild dances
Lena won in 2010 with Satellite
Conchita won in 2014 with Rise like a phoenix
MANIE JACKSON – SPECIAL COVER
On Manie Jacks0n’s gospel CD is one special track
LEEF VIR HOM (Live for him)
It is the Afrikaans cover of a big Bles Bridges English hit, FIGHT FOR LOVE but originally a hit for UDO JURGENS, the composer in German.
This cover was done for Udo but he passed away tragically before we would give it to him. But hopefully all UDO fans will enjoy the song.
LAST CHANCE TO EARN POINTS FOR 2016 TICKET LIST
The points table will close on 31 October 2015.
There is one more chance for points but this is exclusively just for people who became members for 2016. We know some of you joined late and did not have all the chances for points like the older members (especially good luck messages). So here is your last chance – the closing date is 21 October 2015.
It is a much more difficult task but there are a lot of points at stake – two members can get 100 points each which will almost guarentee those two for ticket packages.
The two winners will be judges by a panel of three people
Andy Mikheev – Kazakhstan
Cole van Dais – South Africa
Gerry Avelino – United States
These three people are not taking tickets themselves so they will judge each entry purely on merit. They won’t even know who is who, as I will get the entries and give it to them just as entry from A or B or C, no names.
So unlike normal tasks, this task will requite a little more thought to make sure you stand a chance to be one of the two winners.
One of the most important aspects of EUROVISION is which countries will take part and fans are always sad when some countries decide not to take part. Recently we heard NO’s from Croatia, Bosnia and Portugal. But we also know Turkey, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Andorra and Monaco will not participate.
The task is, you have to pick one of these NON participating countries and write a letter to their HEAD OF TV ENTERTAINMENT and give reasons why you as a fan want this country to reconsider and take part.
I myself have done this several times and in the case of two, I have had some success in that these countries did take part and one even wrote to me saying my mail got them thinking. The first example is CZECH REPUBLIC 2015. I wrote a long letter to them once we knew Eurovision 2015 would be in Vienna. My reasons for them to take part is that in 1968 their most famous singer KAREL GOTT took part for Austria in Eurovision with a song composed by Udo Jurgens, the only previous Austrian winner and it would be wonderful to have them make a return in Vienna. Even in Vienna Marta and Vaclav spoke to me as they knew of the South African who is a huge Karel Gott fan. In my mail to Czech republic I attached also sales figures of Karel Gott covers in South Africa (12 of his songs have been covered in Afrikaans with sales to around 3 million). Of course they did write to me to say other factors played a role as well, but it was great that I reminded them about this special connection between Austria and the Czech republic.
The second example was AUSTRIA 2011 – and here I focused mainly on the fact that Eurovision 2011 was in DUSSELDORF in Germany and it would look awful if a fellow German speaking country is absent.
I know this is not going to be easy but a lot of points are at stake and so think carefully which country you will pick and what reasons you will use to get them to return.
I would like to send the best mails to these countries – maybe a last passionate plea would get maybe one to return. We have nothing to loose.
Answers to info@esccovers.com
Paying Tribute to Udo Jurgens
Today, one of OGAE Rest of the World’s newest members, Eduard Romanyuta, who is representing Moldova in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, paid tribute to a past star of Eurovision. We captured him at the Eurovision Wall in Vienna at the section dedicated to Udo Jurgens, the great Austrian Eurovision star who passed away recently. Eduard is from Ukraine and with Ukraine not appearing this year it is great to see they are not left out entirely. We wish Eduard, now one of our members, all the best this year.
EUROVISION – 60 YEARS CELEBRATION
Today is the official launch of the big project OGAE Rest of the world has undertaken to celebrate 60 years of Eurovision. A 3 CD set will be made and will be available in Vienna during the Eurovision period. Celebrating 60 years, so the 3 CD set will contain 60 COVERS of EUROVISION songs by artists from South Africa. Each CD will contain 20 songs. Only 60 copies will be printed and handed out in VIENNA during promotions and competitions.
Deciding on which 60 songs took a lot of effort since there were over 400 to consider and only 60 could be chosen.
I have tried to take into account several factors
– countries of the original song (trying to give each country at least one song) but it was not always possible as some like Czech republic has no cover done and others, notable Sweden and Iceland could almost fill 33% of such a project.
– SA artists – trying to use as big a variety as possible, making sure no-one is there twice as solo artist. Some do appear twice but then in duet with someone else.
– New and old songs, classics and hidden gems
– Big hits at EUROVISION but also big hits in South Africa (this does not always correlate)
After selecting the 60 songs, I also consulted with about 10 people who each could add one song and now the final 60 is there.
In the next 6 weeks, I will introduce these 60 songs ONE by ONE in the order they will appear on the compilation set.
Once all 60 songs have been unveiled, I will do a post as to how people can get a copy – keeping in mind there are just 60 copies. Because it is a promotion, the CD’s are not for sale.
I hope by the time we do the cover around beginning APRIL, we will have a logo for the club which will be on the compilation.
The original idea was to hand the first set to UDO JURGENS in VIENNA, but unfortunately that is no longer possible since his death in December.
SEWER TSOENAMI OF HITS NOT SO AFRIKAANS AFTER ALL
The translation of the rapport article by Herman Scholtz
Most of the Afrikaans music on the market is neither new nor original.
When the “bearded woman” Conchita Wurst of Austria hit the international scene last year as winner of Eurovision song contest, it got the attention of a lot of South Africans and they suddenly became aware of this contest and the sub culture of music it represents.
But South African are listening to Eurovision songs for many years says Roy van der Merwe, the president of he Eurovision fan club for countries outside of Europe. Around 80% of the South African music scene is Eurovision related says this Johannesburg citizen who have attended the contest over several years.
He helps South African artists to obtain the rights to record these songs and keeps detailed record of all the covers done in South Africa.
Eurovision who allows each member country to send one entry to the contest. It is enormously popular and the contest had made stars of people such as ABBA and Celine Dion.
It started in 1956 and 52 different countries have at least entered once.
Since the start of the contest, there has been approximately 1600 individual songs says Van der Merwe. Of these 1600, at least 400 have been covered in AFRIKAANS and several of them had been huge hits.
This 400 are however only the official Eurovision entries. Since Van der Merwe helps the artists to liase with the overseas composers, he also keeps record of the songs that have been in the selection progress of countries and many of these have come to South Africa to become Afrikaans hits. We call these Euro related songs. Taking this into account, almost 80% of the Afrikaans music industry is Eurovision related.
It started way back. Bles Bridges recorded tons of German songs. Manual Escorcio’s song SOVEEL HERINNER MY (so much remind me) was Ireland’s 1970 winner, ALL KINDS OF EVERYTHING. The 1972 entry from Luxembourg APRES TOI has been translated by Bles & Sunette Bridges, Ge Korsten, Janita Claassen and Patricia Lewis and with three different sets of lyrics.
Rina Hugo’s hit JY’S VIR MY was the Spanish 1973 entry ERES TU.
A far more recent example is UITKLOPHOU (knockout punch), the title track of Karlien van Jaarsveld platinum CD. This song was Georgia’s 2013 entry WATERFALL.
This is just the Euro related market. Various singers have gotten the right to other songs by overseas composers to use their melodies and translate the lyrics. Snotkop en Moniqe Foxx got people’s feet tapping with their song PARAPAPA, but it was two BRAZILIAN rockets CIDINHO and DOCA who did the original song RAP DAS ARMAS in 2007. They were the composers of it.
The song is about the Brazilian police and their fight against crime and drug smuggling.
The Afrikaans version (the music video) shows Snotkop who is a weekend alone at his parent’s house and is holding a party. It contains lyrics like
EK SOEK JOU IN DIE SONSKYN HIER NABY MY
MY ARMS OM JOU SEXY BRUINGEBRANDE LYF
I want you in the sunshine here next to me
MY arms around your sexy brown tanned body
Van der Merwe says covers are international phenomena. In fact, his dream is to see every Eurovision hit done in Afrikaans.
But because of the stigma in South Africa over covers, a lot of artists lie, or just keep quiet over who the original composer is and just simple say IT IS UNKNOWN.
The song farmer ANTON GOOSEN differs radical and says this tendency is a sewer tsoenami that has hit the country. It is all about a quick fix to success. The artists record something from Europe, which is already a hit. Why do they do it? South African people understand English and should listen to the English song is they wanted to (He fails to understand that the majority of covers are from songs in OTHER LANGUAGE).
Although I wont say it is as bad a murder to cover a song, says Goosen, the big crime is that the royalties leave the country for Europe while this money could have much better be used in South Africa (Again he fails to understand that the royalties for composers are such a small part of the recording – most local artists spend the most money INSIDE South Africa on the expensive producers and promotion of the their CD’s).
He added it has now become so bad that most South African composers are only interested in writing lyrics to existing melodies and no new ones. He then said there are some original artists like LAURIKA RAUCH (and again he has not his facts as two of Laurika’s biggest hits like op BLOUBERG SE STRAND is originally UDO JURGENS songs) and DAVID KRAMER. These two will stay popular as their work are original and local. He says the cover songs (which again he referred to as translated although many have total new lyrics in Afrikaans and is not even related to the original lyrics – for example UITKLOPHOU) has a tendency to be DOEF DOEF (difficult to translate DOEF DOEF but mainly the GERMAN SCHLAGER beat music) music with shallow lyrics (yes there are some with shallow lyrics, like many EDUROVISION songs indeed but there are also some with absolute brilliant lyrics).
HERE SOME OF THESE COVERD SONS ON NETWERK24.com