17 August 1945: Katri Helena born



Katri Helena Kalaoja (née Koistinen) was born on 17 August 1945. She released her first songs in 1963 and has since sold over 630,000 certified records, which makes her the second-best-selling female soloist in Finland behind Madonna and places her also among the top 20 best-selling music artists in the Finnish market. She has represented Finland twice in the Eurovision Song Contest: in 1979 with her song 'Katson sineen taivaan' and in 1993 with 'Tule luo'.

Katri Helena has been married three times. She had two daughters and a son with her husband Timo Kalaoja, who died of a heart attack in 1988. His death affected her so much that she withdrew from public view and stopped performing and recording for four years. Her only son, Juha Kalaoja, died at age 33 on 29 April 2009.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2 August 1972: Justyna Steczkowska born

Image
Justyna Steczkowska was born exactly 45 years ago today in Rzeszów, Poland. She comes from a big musical family, has five sisters (Agata, Krystyna, Magdalena, Maria, Cecylia) and three brothers (Pawel, Jacek, Marcin). She played violin in a family band before becoming a solo singer. In 1995, she represented Poland at the Eurovision Song Contest with the song 'Sama' ('Alone'). The rather peculiar song was an artistic triumph but only got to 18th place. In Poland she appeared in two movies and took part in the Polish edition of 'Dancing with the stars'. In 2013, she was one of the coaches on the talent show The Voice of Poland.
Keep reading

12 August 1939: Margot Eskens born

Image
Margot Eskens was born on 12 August 1939 in Düren (Germany). In 1954, while a dental assistant, Eskens won a Polydor Records talent competition with the song 'Moulin Rouge'. A contract with Polydor followed, and in 1955 she had her first hit in Germany with 'Ich möchte heut ausgehn'. In 1956 and 1957 she had two number 1 hits, 'Tiritomba', which sold over 800,000 copies, and 'Cindy oh Cindy', which was her biggest hit, staying for 25 weeks in the German Singles Top 10. In 1966, she represented Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song 'Die Zeiger der Uhr'. The song ended up in tenth place, in a field of 18 competitors. During her career she sold over 40 million records. At the end of the 1980s she began to record more traditional 'Schlagermusik' like her album 'Mein Traumland am Wörthersee' (1990). Today she actually lives beside the scenic lake Wörthersee in the Carinthian region of Austria.
Keep reading

6 July 1993: Jana Burceska born

Image
One of the mysteries of Eurovision is that sometimes catchy, modern pop songs don't make it to the finals anymore. Even if they are sung by beautiful young women. Perhaps in the case of Jana Burceska, who was born 24 years ago today, there was too much focus on her private life: she announced her pregnancy before her performance and shortly after it, she was proposed to by her boyfriend Alexander and she accepted - all on air. All this took the focus away from this year's entry from Macedonia: 'Dance alone', a song written by Joacim Persson, Johan Alkanaes, Florence A. and Borislav Milanov. Although a hit in Macedonia, the song didn't qualify for this year's Eurovision final.
Keep reading