Tag Archives: South African covers

2015 Eurovision Song Contest, Celebrating 60 years of Eurovision, Competitions, Covers

EUROVISION – 60 YEARS CELEBRATION

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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.

Blast from the past, Covers

SOUTH AFRICAN COVERS

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The titles of over 400 covers of Eurovision songs by South African artists have been loaded in the library and this is more or less complete with there and there the original title of a song to be added once I have checked the spelling. That is the first part of the library – the covers are done alphabetical by original country and inside each country, by date order. The second part is the covers of melodifestivalen songs and this index is in date order and is about 40% complete. I hope to have it finished before the 2015 edition of melodifestivalen starts. I also got requests to do a third section – this is covers of songs by EUROVISION artists, for example not just Abba’s Waterloo but every ABBA song that has been covered in South Africa. This has never really been done and so I have no idea how many such covers exist but I have already loaded a lot – covers from Euro artists such as ABBA, Nicole, New Seekers, Celine Dion, Karel Gott, Nana Mouskouri, Vicky Leandros, Olivia Newton John, Mouth & Macneal etc. Hopefully some fans will see some interesting covers and go and search for them on Itunes or Youtube or wherever. 99% of the songs listed are in my own private collection- either on CD or vinyl single.