Nana's lesson in humility
Nov 2 2007
Music
Nana Mouskouri is taking her final bow as an artist. She talks to Alison Jones about her career.
The statistics are staggering. It is estimated she has sold more than 300 million records world wide. She has recorded 1,500 songs in 15 languages on 450 albums. And she has so many gold and platinum albums she'd need to apply for planning permission to build the wall to hold them all.
Yet Nana Mouskouri - who after 50 years as a singer is currently on a farewell world tour - could still give your Madonnas, your Britneys, your Marias and your Jennifers a lesson in humility.
She is the girl from Greece who was so dirt poor as a child that when friends came to tea, she would pray for fine weather so the water wouldn't come flooding through the walls of their pokey basement flat.
The same girl who when she grew up she was invited to dine with King Constantine and sit at the table of his aunt. That would be Aunt Elizabeth, otherwise known as the Queen of England.
The same girl who when Harry Belafonte heard her singing in the Eurovision song contest (back in the days when even Terry Wogan still took it seriously), he rang producer Quincy Jones begging for her number to book her as his professional partner.
It is almost impossible to comprehend just how highly regarded this woman, whose name for many of us just brings to mind a hazy impression of big square glasses and a centre parting, was by the musical world.
So high that when Frank Sinatra flew into Perth to begin an Australian tour in 1974 he was greeted by empty Tarmac. The media ignored his arrival because they were all at the press conference for the start of Nana's tour.→read more
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