Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Katri Helena, the legendary "blue and white voice" and Finnish Icon and legend turns 80 tomorrow and will retire from music business after 62 years with a mega concert in Helsinki Olympic stadium. YLE will film the show and broadcast it on Finland's Independence day on December 6. She's got under her belt some 500 recorded songs, 50+ albums, countless hits, two Eurovision song contests (1979 and 1993) and various other international festivals. Her hometown Tohmajärvi has named a street after her. She has top-10 album in six decades.  She has sold almost two million records and earned 19 gold discs, four platinum albums and one multi platinum. And she does it with the biggest possible way: the before mentioned last performance at Helsinki Olympic stadium! Besides the stadium mega concert she releases also a double greatest hits featuring the following hits, among them several Eurovision covers and obviously her own Eurovision entries: 1 Elämän tie 2025 (Her last record...

She's the blue 'n white voice of Finland and has been singing already 63 years but all that comes to an end on August 16, 2025 - the night before she turns 80. The Helsinki Olympic stadium will see and hear her belt out her hits from the 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, 1990's, 2000's, 2010's and finally 2020's in a concert tile The Last Night, that will be her one and only performance in 2025. Her career has been long and unlike most everyone she doesn't have had particularly lows but highs and even higher periods of stardom and hit potential. One of the highest heights she's living right now as the new young generations have found and adopted her as well. She has also never really had a break, except in late 1980's/early 1990's after the sudden death of her husband. She returned in 1992 with Anna mulle tähtitaivas, her biggest selling album and the title song she says is her favorite of them all.  Her debut single Poiken kuvat released in 1...

  Erminio Sinni placed 5th among the Newcomers in 1993 with a song L'amore vero by Riccardo Cocciante, winning also awards for the best music and lyrics. His real success has been however songwriting but this song has been fortunate and become a theme song for a South American soap opera and sold almost a million copies in late 1990's. Sinni himself mace a comeback to great public in The Voice Senior in 2020. 

  This Sicilian winner of Castrocaro 1987 new talent competition took part in Sanremo newcomers in 1993 with this song that I still love, Non volevo . He placed 6th (behind likes of Laura Pausini and Nek). I always thought he had something common with Battiato, Alice and likes and in fact he ended up working with Juri Camisasca in the 2000's besides writing for theater, films and television. Besides writing the fantastic pop number  Musica for Paolo Meneguzzi in 2007, that scored BIG in Latin America. 

 Matia Bazar have participated in Sanremo 12 times winning it twice. The line up has changed over the years as have the lead female singer since Antonella Ruggiero left in 1989. She was replaced by Laura Valente, these days better known my youngsters as the mother of Angelina Mango. When Angelina takes the Ariston stage she follows not only her mom's but also dad's footsteps and who knows will outdo them both? Anyways, Antonella's Matia was fabulous, Laura's rockier but I liked that version, too, and especially this song, Dedicato a te . Silvia Mezzanotte followed her and brought them their second Sanremo win, while Roberta Faccani is the latest lady. However, none of the original members is left...

Loreen of Sweden is the 15th previous Eurovision song contest winner who has decided and/or managed give it another try. Only Ireland's Johnny Logan has managed to win twice, as we all know. One can't really do a ranking however as the contest had changed so much from the 1950's with maybe a dozen songs to the approx 40 we have these days. In coming days I will feature the winners who decided to come back  after  winning the contest as there also many winners who have won with their second or third try.   Ireland dominated Eurovision in the 1990's and Niamh Kavanagh (55) scored the second win of their triplet in 1993 at home in Millstreet with In your eyes. She dropped her plans to move to the US and instead released a successful album and enjoyed her newfound fame for a while before settling into quiet family life and children a few years later. Occasionally she was involved in the Eurovision celebrations until she was convinced back to the Irish selection in 2010. She...

Italy took its well deserved third victory - finally! - at the Eurovision song contest 2021. Over the years several other Italian entries would have been worthy winners. In this series I will go through all of them from the worst ranking to the winners. Enrico Ruggeri (64) took his second Sanremo win with Mistero , the first and only rock song to win Sanremo until Måneskin. His first one was in 1987 in Trio Morandi-Ruggeri-Tozzi wherefrom Umberto Tozzi went on to Eurovision with Raf instead. However he didn't bring Mistero but Europe inspired Sole d'Europa but Europe wasn't shining too much love on him and he placed 12th out of 25. Ruggeri is one of the Big names and has been around in music business since early 1970's, first in I Decibel band with whom he does his first Sanremo in 1980. After 22 studio albums and over 50 singles he's also writer, tv and radio host and the president of Italian artists football club. After this presence Italy stayed home for three y...

    Katri Helena is no doubt THE Finnish female singer, The White'n'Blue Voice. Over six decades she has delivered hits and painted the Finnish mind landscape with her songs, many of them that have proven ageless over the years.  She has recorded nearly 500 songs, released over 50 albums and sold almost two million records and she can cover a wall or two with her gold, platimun and diamond discs. Besides doing Eurovision song contest twice for Finland, she also did Rostock 1965, Cannes 1967 and Sopot 1969. She has performed in Japan, France, Estonia, USSR, DDR and Poland. In Finland she's been touring and performing since 1963 and over the decades won several awards. She has taken part in the Finnish Eurovision national final Euroviisut six times and you can enjoy those songs below: 1965 - Minne tuuli kuljettaa (1st/3rd) The 1965 Euroviisut is still remembred but for all the wrong reasons. Katri Helena actually won the public voting - and many still b...

Helsinki and Finland will get its own museum celebrating Finnish music, a multimedia affair inspired by Stockholm's ABBA Museum among others. It will also include the Finnish Music Hall of Fame and the first ten names included have been revealed. The only living one among the legends is none other than the blue & white voice Katri Helena (73). Her career spans already six decades and she has released over 50 albums, recorded nearly 500 songs and sold over 1,5 million albums. On top of that several international festivals including Eurovision song contest. Twice.  The museum will be opening in fall 2019 in Helsinki's Pasila district's new Tripla complex. The other Fame names included are classical composer Jean Sibelius , opera singer and creator of Savonlinna opera festival in Olavinlinna castle  Aino Ackté , dance orchestra Dallapé (still existing, since 1925!), singer, musician and composer Georg Malmsten , king of tango Olavi Virta , folk virtuoso Konsta J...

Every now and then Eurovision song contest winners come back to the contest and looking back quite often it hasn't been such a good idea. A total of 14 previous winners have managed to return (and even more have tried but failed to win the national final. Latest of them is Swedish Loreen last year). In this series I have a brief look at them and how did it go..... Niamh Kavanagh first came to Eurovision in 1993 giving Ireland the second of its third consegutive wins with In your eyes . Niamh was rather unknown back then even if she had already sung in The Commitments soundtrack but no doubt it one of the finest vocalists in the contest ever. She battled it with UK's Sonia until the end but secured a 23 point lead with seven 12s and votes from each and every country. In 2010 she was back with It's for you . Placing 9th in her semifinal (12 points from Switzerland and 10 from UK clearly saved her) she qualified for the final where she collected 25 points and ...

  The reigning Eurovision champion starts its search for the follow up entry at home soil in Lisbon 2018 Eurovision song contest. tonight As usual, RTP invited composers to create a song, choose a singer and tonight half of them, 13, will perform and a jury will pick up seven for the final. Actually, RTP invited 22 composers, one was chosen by Eurovision winner Saldavor Sobral (Janeiro), one got the ticket by a contest organized by a radio station (Daniela Onis, in 2nd semi) and two were chosen among the open submissions: Rita Diaz and Peter Serrado (in 2nd semi) The jury includes singers and composers, radio hosts and journalists and some familiar names: last year's winning entry's composer Luisa Sobral and Eurovision veteran Sara Tavares among others. Among artists another Eurovision veterans, Anabela and Jose Cid. Judging the snippets (click below) I'm most looking forward to Peu, Janeiro, JP, Catarina, Beatriz, Maria and Rita.... Peu Madureira – Só Por E...

  The queen arrived, still a bit down with the voice but she came, sung and conquered singing alone and with Claudio Baglioni and not only: she also went outside to sing to the people infront of the Teatro Ariston. Things only she can permit to do ... in her Giorgio Armani Privé long black dress.... Hope she didn't catch the laringhite again!  Laura's career started just in Sanremo 25years ago in 1993 when she won the Newcomers with La solitudine . The year after she placed third with Strani amori among Big and has sold millions on albums and recorded in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and English and become the best known Italian pop singer ever globally. 

    Reigning Eurovision winner Portugal has revealed all details about their national final Festival da Canção 2018. Two semifinals (February 19 and 25) before the final, seven out of each will move on to the final. In the semis there will be 50-50 televote-jury, and in the final 50-50 regional juries-jury. And yes, this bloggers superfavorite Diogo Picarra will sing his own song :-) Besides we have Anabela (ESC 1993) and José Cid (ESC 1980) in the list. There was a freedom of language but apparently only two songs are in English :-) Joana Espadinha – “Zero a Zero” (Benjamim) Peu Madureira – “Só Por Ela” (Diogo Clemente) Anabela “Para Te Dar Abrigo” (Fernando Tordo) Janeiro – “(sem título)” (Janeiro) Rui David – “Sem Medo” (Jorge Palma) José Cid & Gonçalo Tavares – “O Som da Guitarra É a Alma de Um Povo” (José Cid) JP Simões – “Alvoroço” (JP Simões) Catarina Miranda – “Para Sorrir Eu Não Preciso de Nada” (Júlio Resende) Beatriz Pessoa – “Eu Te Am...

TVR has released the semifinalists for Selecţia Naţională Eurovision 2018. Some things never change: MIHAI tries again as a singer, and various Perssons, Downs and Gladnikoffs with quite a few Swedes are at it again. Among the songwriters also Ovidiu Anton that EBU made to stay home in 2016 when he had already packed his bags thanks to TVR's unpaid bills to EBU. Last year's Alex Florea tries again, this time solo. Then he have again Sergiu Bogota, this time with a self penned song when he tries last year with Stig Rästa's excellent We were young , one of this blogger's favorites. But the real surprise is (Italian?) Erminio Sinni singing with Titziana Camelin. This blogger wonders if it's the Erminio Sinni who took part in Sanremo 1993 with L'amore vero and left an everlasting mark in my mind. He's long disappeared from my radar, last seen in Latin America so could it be he has ended in Romania or is it just another Sinni? Any excuse is good enou...

  Finland celebrates its 100th year as an independent state and has ever since searched for its place in Europe and the world, between East and West. Sometimes with less success. As we speak in 1939 we were at war again with Soviet Union but - let's make a huge change of subject here -  since 1961 Finland has been taking part in the Eurovision song contest (and we also took part, and won twice, the copycat contest behind the Iron curtain, Intervision song contest). It may have taken awhile before we won, but it never stopped us taking part. EBU did, in those crazy 1990's-early 2000's. Let's look back in coming days as a countdown to the Big Day some of the most memorable and significant entries from Finland..... In 1993 YLE was again rather desperate and decided to go for a small scale national final with four invited ladies each with two songs. Katri Helena , ever so popular, won with a very Finnish song Tule luo with accordeon and all. The bule and white...

  French Patrick Fiori is back with a new album this year, and Oú je vis is the lead single of it. A song that grows and grows and gets stuck in your head. Another Fiori goodie. He should do Eurovision again! Sweden's Eurovision winner Loreen continues releasing singles off her coming album and 71 charger is out now. This is a far cry for euphoric feelings, but a lot more enjoyable than her other latest efforts, mainly thanks to its mysterious atmosphere. Slovenian Marayya are trying to go international with their latest Diamond Duck , an obvious reference to the orange man in the white house. Filled with emojis and stuff, the video is far more interesting than the song that sounds more like an idea of something that never became a proper song. But sometimes these things work and become hits. Released already awhile ago it seems this is not one of those, Shame. Russian Serebro has released a song about "the love between us" in the middle of yet anot...

It's already a tradition YLE dusts off some old Euroviisut broadcasts for the May Day and today is no exception. On Yle Teema channel at noon we have again Eurovision Brunch with the Finnish selections of 1993 and 1994. HAPPY WAPPU EVERYONE! The 1993 was a bit special one as that year YLE invited four super ladies for the competition: Katri Helena, Paula Koivuniemi, Marjorie and Arja Koriseva . Each had two songs selected from the submitted ones and the whole show was very low key in YLE's studios. Katri Helena's Tule luo was a clear winner. In 1994 it was back to normal, big show in Tampere talo. But it was a flop, they didn't manage to fill the concert hall even half way, maybe due to the very unknown line up, but in television it was a success when almost 1,2 million watched CatCat march to the victory with Bye bye baby . There was the telvoting for the first time and the votes were given out by regions plus the ones from the audience in the hall. CatCa...

Fausto Leali releases his first album in seven years and this time it's fashionable duets album. The lead single is A chi mi dice , originally adapted in Italian by Tiziano Ferro for Blue , originally Breathe easy . Leali belts it out with legendary Mina (last public concert in 1978, but has released dozens of top selling albums since, 1-2 per year generally), the only lady on the album while other duets are with Eurovision veterans Enrico Ruggeri and Umberto Tozzi , and Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley , just to name a few.  Two years ago he released an autobiography Notti piene di stelle (Nights filled with stars) that celebrated his 50th anniversary in the business. The story continues now.....

One of the most touching moments in the Eurovision song contest history happened back in 1993 when Bosnia & Herzegovina debuted and during the voting we heard for the first time "Good evening Sarajevo, can we have your points please?" by Fionnuala Sweeney in Millstreet. The public in the Green Glens Arena erupted in a spontaneus heartfelt applause when the phone connection was made, with some sound problems to war torn Sarajevo.  Bosnia & Herzegovina's way to Millstreet wasn't a dance on roses. Fazla and his team had to escape from Bosnia on foot during the night hoping not to be shot dead by the Serbs. Sounds quite Hollywoodian as we think about it now but it was the reality back then. Their conductor was ment to floow them later but wasn't able to leave Sarajevo in time to join them due to heavy war, and house conductor Noel Kelehan stepped in. “An army guide put me into a group with the guitarist and two girls – our back-up singers. Then he t...

The rumor gets stronger and stronger: Laura Pausini will be in Sanremo 2016? But hold your horses, she won't be in the competition but as a guest, and possibly the co-host? Last time Carlo Conti took two singers, Emma and Arisa next to him and this year he wants them both in the competition again. Time will tell if that will be the case. Both have already won it, too, and Emma has even done Eurovision while Arisa has declared several times she wants to do it. Would it be too soon for her to win again? But back to Laura. She's one of those stars born in Sanremo. She came, sung La solitudine back in 1993 and won the newcomers and charmed Italians and half of Europe alike. Next year she was back among the Big and placed third with Strani amori . Since then she has become a worldstar with over 70 million sold albums, been back to Sanremo twice as guest star (2001, 2006), she has dueted with countless local and international stars, been nominated and won Grammys and other awar...