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Nana Mouskouri: Diva with specs appeal
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 10/11/2007
Andy Miller reviews Memoirs, by Nana Mouskouri with Lionel Duroy, translated by Jeremy Leggatt
On Monday, October 29, a few hours after I wrote these words, Nana Mouskouri gave her farewell London concert at the Albert Hall. I know about this momentous event only because Mouskouri mentions it on page 371 of her Memoirs. And yet, the figures are mind-boggling. In a career spanning 50 years, she is estimated to have sold more than 300 million records internationally, recording in 15 languages over the course of some 450 albums. She has more than 230 gold and platinum albums worldwide. When, in 2004, her French record company produced an anthology of her French recordings alone, it ran to 34 CDs. Serge Gainsbourg wrote for her. So did Bob Dylan. She has performed in a multiplicity of styles - opera, jazz, folk, world music and even, according to her, heavy metal. She is the most successful female singer of all time. And yet what do we think of when we think of Mouskouri? A pair of black-framed specs and an ancient episode of The Two Ronnies. Ionna Mouskouri was born on October 13, 1934 on the island of Crete, where her father was a film projectionist and a compulsive gambler. The family moved to Athens a few years later. Both Nana (as she was known to her loved ones) and her elder sister, Jenny, were gifted singers and, having survived the rigours of the Nazi occupation and the misery of their parents' troubled marriage, the girls were accepted into the Athens Conservatoire to study classical music and opera. According to her memoirs, Mouskouri's relentless progress through the Greek music world occurred despite her background, her appearance, her low self-esteem - the blessing of her voice was enough to carry all before it. "Through music and song," she writes, "people would love me in spite of my glasses, and my extra pounds. They would love me in every country in the world, a thought that never ceases to amaze me." Well, maybe. She was also clearly very ambitious. One doesn't have to read too hard between the lines to detect the diva behind the specs. Her fame soon spread throughout Europe and America. She represented her country in the Eurovision Song Contest. She performed with Harry Belafonte and recorded with Quincy Jones. She was given her own TV show. She headlined the Olympia in Paris. Yet she remains shy and underconfident. One night in London, she bumped into two old chums: Rod Stewart and Serge Gainsbourg. Rather than heading straight to her hotel suite and barring the door, she arranged to meet the two notorious hellraisers in the bar. It would be nice to report that the unlikely threesome ended the evening by pouring brandy alexanders over one another's heads and crashing a limo into Keith Moon's pool, but no. They had a quiet chat about audiences (Rod: "I'm like Nana, I need applause") and then went to bed - at least, Mouskouri did. Similarly, in the 1980s, she struck up an unlikely and somewhat intense friendship with Bob Dylan. After they were introduced by (who else?) Leonard Cohen, Dylan went to several of Mouskouri's concerts, enjoyed some late-night suppers with her and even wrote her a song: the sublime Every Grain of Sand. Veteran Dylan-watchers may conclude from the specifics of this acquaintance that Bob was putting some of his famous moves on Nana, but either through lack of interest or good-hearted naivety she was able to resist. Characteristically, there's little in the way of score-settling or scandal in this book, just a few cross words about being snubbed by Frank Sinatra and a passive-aggressive approach to irksome managers, employees and an ex-husband. Yet Mouskouri remains likeable throughout; and the passages in which she writes about the experience of singing are rather stirring. In 1993, she was appointed a Unicef Goodwill Ambassador, taking over from Audrey Hepburn. She was elected to the European parliament in 1994, serving as an MEP for five years, during which time she campaigned for the return of the Elgin Marbles. And she continues to record and perform, and audiences still adore her. In an era when the popular music industry has grown and distorted itself out of all recognition, Mouskouri has been beyond fashion, a haven for all those who want nothing more complicated than a beautiful voice and a conscience. Audiences feel safe with her. For as this book makes clear, aside from her unquestionable talent and her appetite for hard work, Mouskouri has that most precious of performing gifts: the ability to project sincerity. And as the late George Burns said, if you can fake that - in glasses - you've got it made.
