Forget Johnny Logan. Forget Rolf Lövland, Philip Vella and the rest. It is Ralph Siegel who has given us the most number of songs and shaped Eurovision a lot in the 1970's. He has had 19 songs to date in the contest, including one winner, 3 runner ups and two third placed ones. He has represanted four countries and has been involved in many other national selections from Malta to Finland, from Austria to Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is the first post of the Ralph Siegel saga leading us to Moscow 2009.
Ralph Siegel was born September 30, 1945 in Munich as a son of famous composer Ralph Maria Siegel and operet singer Ingeborg Döderlein. His grandfather Rudolf was also a musician, opera composer and director of orchestra in Krefeld. Little Ralph was much inspired by him, and composed his very first songs at the age of 5. By then he played already guitar, piano and accordeon. When Ralph Jr was 12, his father wrote the German entry in Eurovision 1957. Margot Hielscher took Telefon, Telefon to 4th place.
In 1958 Ralph Jr wrote his first published songs under pseudonym Peter Elversen: In der heimat bluh’n die letzten Rosen and Wenn eine Geige singt. He forms his first band Peter Elversen-Septett.
He goes on with his studies in Switzerland in Ecole d’Humanité before attending Ecomics School back in Munchen. In 1960 his first song is recorded and published: Du bist kein Fall von Traurigkeit by world champion of accordeon Will Glahe.
In 1963 at the age of 17 he leaves Germany for England and attends European Education Center in Bournemouth and after that works for a year in Paris in a record company. Here he learns everything he needs to know about building a recording empire. He also learns French and Italian. A year later he writes his first big hit It’s a long, long way to Georgia sung by Don Gibson and it makes it to #8 in the US country charts. Ralph moves to the States for a year to study more music business.
In 1965 he is back to Germany and ready to start writing and producing songs and finding new talents while scoring his first hits like Wenn die Rosen bluh’n in Georgia by Gunther Gabriel, Sein wahres Gesicht by Dorthe and Winds of change by Gloomys. He participates in Schlagerfestival with Wir glauben an die Welt von morgen sung by Mary Roos. In the end of the 1960’s he writes and produces an anti-war album Warum by City-Preachers and causes some controversy here and there. But it is the 1970’s that he hits it big.
To be continued...
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