Nana Mouskouri

Love her! ...Belle Doette

Love her Halloween tribute!!

She is one of those people you always hear is well-known in some other country, but no one has heard of her in yours,

The crossword puzzle clue writers lobby created her to fuck with our heads.

We have a running joke about Nana Mouskouri in our family. Sometime in the mid-80s my Dad must have seen one of the commercials on TV and ordered an album of hers. He played it CONSTANTLY and proceeded to get other family members hooked on her craptacular music. My cousins all hated her as well. My dad eventually tired of her, but just say her name at any family party nowadays, and it will cause a round of laughter. And there was the infamous DLer who years back received the wrong number call from Ms. Mouskouri herself. I always got a kick out of that.

Nana entered my world the same time as the Shindig dancer who wore glasses....and my older sister explained that entertainers could use eyeglasses as part of their schtick for the public to remember them by...

I prefer Ronnie Barker's Nana Mouskouri.

I had a boyfriend who adored her. He also turned out to be a drunk and an annoyingly well-hung total bottom. Great combo!

A woman who challenged herself and her people with her own vision.

I remember 'Only Love' being a big hit when I was young. It was the theme song to the TV series Mistral's Daughter

I read about a French edition of the 60s hit "Sally Go 'Round the Roses" and sure enough, Nana came through!

[quote]I prefer Ronnie Barker's Nana Mouskouri.

Benny Hill was no slouch as Nana, either (at link).

Personally, I've always been a fan. Her problem, though, was that her glorious voice was combined with appalling taste. There was nothing she wouldn't record.

She must have advertised her cassettes on Fox News and/or Rush Limbaugh because my mother had them in her car. “Oh I just love Nana Mouskouri!” she said one day when I was in her car. It was the most godawful caterwauling. I said, “please turn that off - and keep the radio off too (the dial was always on Limbaugh’s network) or I’ll start screaming. And I mean it, ma. I really mean it. If you need music, put on the Charlie Brown Christmas cassette I got you.”;

So we listened to Linus and Lucy in July.

R12 beat me to it. Benny Hill was my first introduction to Nana and had no idea who she was. Sure enough my parents had one of her albums in the cabinet of the old hi-fi.

Nana has better versions than those who sang the originals.

Here she out sings that bigoted bitch that made it popular here in the US.

Where the FUCK is MY thread, you miserable cunts?

After hearing Nana's version of this song back in 1991,

I could never listen to Celine's ego trip version when it came on the radio=

Thanks for posting that, R15.

The first time I heard Nana, I was in a record store where they were playing that. I bought that record and, eventually, many more.

Slim Whitman was WAY better than Nana:

I could never like the original song no matter how hard I tried. I just wanted to give her a vicious face slap for her vocals.

When I heard Nana's version in the 1990s, it made the song tolerable...

I prefer moussaka.

Nana did more with this song vocally than that pedo king could ever hope to =

Is Paul there?

They were advertised on TV quite a bit at the time, r13....

I went to one of her concerts. She sang everything in fucking Greek!

Andrea Mouskouri....

I think her version is the best outside of the original =

Here's an unusual performance.

It's Nana singing "Le ciel est noir," a French version of Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall."

R11 Thanks 4 posting that. I've never heard her version of that 1.

I think she should call it a day.

Her look is classically "retro," but when I first encountered her in French class in the late 70s it seemed ridiculously outdated and square, and made me question French taste.

Many years ago, a really long time ago, there was a post on DL by someone who had met her. If I can remember correctly, he was drunk, or at least had a good buzz on, and a friend brought Nana to his home to introduce them. Hilarity ensued. The post was really funny, and I often regret not having saved it.

I just got a premonition about Linda Ronstadt. She's going to die very soon. Something about this thread brought it on.

You're no good, r35.....

Let us not forget the late, great local legend Peter Lemonjello, spoofed on SNL as Peter Lemon Mood Ring

Young people — Peter Lemongello was a nobody who paid to air commercials that made him seem as if he had a huge career when he was just this basic Long Island lounge singer. It was a hoot back in the 70s. His commercials would air on local tv along with ads for Crazy Eddie, the “What’s the Story, Jerry?”guy and the “Sandwiches AGAIN.?” “Oh honey, you KNOW I’m having trouble stretching the paycheck” ad for truck driver “school.”

R5-are we related? You are literally describing my family. Dad just adored Nana!

She's 85 now. An article from last year.

I thought Peter Lemongello was dead, but apparently not. He went in commit a few crimes

Lemongello later worked as a housing contractor in Florida. In the early 1980s he was sentenced to ten years' probation on charges of arson and insurance fraud involving luxury houses his firm was building;[8][9] after violating the terms of the probation, he was in prison for 17 months.[10]

On January 15, 1982, Lemongello and his brother, pro bowler Mike Lemongello, were kidnapped from a construction site, Mike was forced to withdraw more than $50,000 from a bank, and both were then left in the woods. Manny Seoane and Mark Lemongello (the brothers' cousin), both former Major League Baseball pitchers, turned themselves in to police[11] and in 1983 were sentenced to seven years' probation for the crime.[9]

That photo of Nana is digitized within an inch of her life.

She's 78, not 85. I'm not sure where they're getting their information. I think she looks lovely.

Nana, lemongello, demis roussos this thread is bringing back some forgotten names. Keep going with your love of the horror of it all. So naba was French or Greek or what

R5 thx for the laugh

we were a Belafonte household, so throw in Never on Sunday, and Zorba the Greek...this was a natural progression......but where are the glasses???

How on Earth has she sold as many or slightly more records than Madonna and yet isn't as well known?

My parents weren’t big Nana fans. But I remember we had an album of hers among the Judy and Frank albums. And a 45 of the Singing Nun.

I only remember her from the bitch fight she had with Totie Fields on the Mike Douglas show.

[quote]How on Earth has she sold as many or slightly more records than Madonna and yet isn't as well known?

Because she records the same song in like 200 different languages. So she only needs to sell a little number of each to a lot of different people

That Peter Lemongello Love '76 album is on iTunes and Spotify if so inclined.

My mother loved her. Loved her to the point that I was forced to go into the nearby Record Bar and hide her albums in other sections.

R50 Well she had the voice to actually make that a reality.

She put out a lovely Christmas album forty years ago.

Listen to her? I choose my entire wardrobe so I resemble her!

Oh Nana. R39, there's always a chance! My father has the WORST taste in music, it's actually pretty comical. And when he latches onto something, it's gonna be a few years before he tires of it. Schlocky stuff like Roger Whittaker, Enya, and Andrea Bocelli. The Christmas albums of Mannheim Steamroller make me want to jump out of a moving car. And then it's like that artist never existed, he's done. How he came to be the "music influencer" in our large extended family baffles everyone. Luckily, he's been buying a lot of classical piano and Celtic stuff at library sales of late, so it's not nearly as bad is it once was.

She does sing well.

I saw her in concert in Athens and the place was packed to the rafters.

The classic thread

[quote] How on Earth has she sold as many or slightly more records than Madonna and yet isn't as well known?

Say what you will about Madonna but her career is truly extraordinary. She stayed on top for a looooong time and she did it with the younger crowd as well. I'm an 80s kid myself and can't remember when anyone young liked Mouskouri. I remember hearing Only Love constantly when I was small, my 10 years older sister possibly had her record alongside other oldsters' favorite Barbra Streisand. Mouskouri never could really transcend generations and was left on the 70s and early 80s.

[quote] The crossword puzzle clue writers lobby created her to fuck with our heads.

So I'm off the hook then?

[quote] She is one of those people you always hear is well-known in some other country, but no one has heard of her in yours

Any other examples?

[quote] A woman who challenged herself and her people with her own vision.

Well she certainly had the glasses for her own vision.

How does she compare to Zamfir, master of the pan flute?

The only reason she's the World's Best Selling Artist was probably because she recorded 400 different albums and each one sold a million copies. Kind of like how Eric Roberts has over 500 acting credits (he'll appear in ANYTHING). Only difference between the 2 is that Nana actually has talent.

Love Nana. A legend.

Lisa Loeb's grandmother!

I'm Greek, so Nana was always a big part of our house growing up (mostly her Greek songs). We hated her as kids, she was so middle-of-the-road and uncool and we wanted to listen to more western music. But now that i'm older I can appreciate her gentle, supple voice, and good arrangements. The poster upthread is right though, she will sing ANYTHING and was never discerning when it came to material lol. I'm glad she's still with us (so is another Greek legend of the 60s - Irene Papas). Also she doesn't get enough credit for being the KWEEN of wearing glasses.

I also love being on Youtube (or even here apparently) and seeing all the salty Madonna / Mariah / whoever fans who are mad that she outsold their fave. Just because she sings in so many languages doesn't mean it doesn't count. You can go to very small pockets of land in Europe, South America, the middle east, etc. and people will know her music and have seen her in concert. She has earned that by travelling far and wide, extending her boundaries while recording, and not just whoring herself out to the big markets in America, the UK, Japan etc.

Mouskouri had the most distinctive, mellifluous voice. A pleasure to listen to, in any language.

Nana had always been uncool and that may well have been part of her staying power.

What I liked about her was the story that early on, her producer or music label asked her to get rid of the glasses but she insisted on keeping them.