BIG FISH interview
March 12, 2006

 

You are a pioneer of globalization. You’ve been an international product.
Yes. That’s true and I couldn’t really help it. I didn’t know what would happen. But I learned so much out of it.

Like?
First of all I learned everything in my job very well. But above all that there is love in the world and so much freedom, when of course you respect the borders.

You are of ‘Pan-Hellenic’ origin, right?
Completely. My mother was from Corfu, my father from Peloponissos (Arcadia) and I was born in Crete. My life had been between these cities. My first husband also was from Thessaloniki, so we have roots there as well. My residence is Geneva quite accidentally. For me the beginning was France and Germany. Quickly I went to America, England and Spain. And just because my husband was a musician and was traveling to play in different places in Europe we decided to stay in Geneva.

Traveling around the globe what else did you notice?
The world has changed a lot. And while once people were open and enthusiastic about anything new, today they are afraid. Fear and insecurity are everywhere.

Are artists more stars nowadays and less heroes?
I believe that that there are no more real stars today.

You mean that stars today are more like a product for gossip?
Exactly. Only Madonna, despite the fact that she has made scandals, has a huge career and no one can deny it.

You have sold more albums than her, I think.
Eh! She is younger than me. Madonna was a girl that I met in the 70s, before she starts out her big adventure. She was still in Europe, doing back vocals and dancing.
She is a girl that has been in the business for a long time and has learned it very well.
Then she went to America and made of herself this phenomenon. To be frank, in the beginning I was annoyed by her scandals. But I think that behind this there is so much work.

So you imply that behind provocation there has to be infrastructure.
There are others who do nothing but provoking but last for six months. But there are years of work behind Madonna. It took me all those years to make these albums. I begun in a time that people needed to listen. I worked hard, non-stop to be ‘a la hauteur’. And I lived in a time that discography went up. Now it’s going down.

When you met Madonna in studio, was there something in her eyes predicting that she would make it?
I remember, from everyone that was in the studio only Madonna they would notice. Being noticed even doing back vocals is very important.

But this goes for everyone, I suppose.
Nothing is accidental. Maybe someone gives you a helping hand, open a door for you but if you are not interested yourself….

In making sacrifices?
You don’t think of it as a sacrifice. Once I was invited all the time. Soon they realized that I wasn’t going to go so they stopped.

Why wouldn’t  you go?
Because I would lose time. Like today, sometimes I go but only to please those who invite me. In the beginning I couldn’t dispose this time because I would loose an opportunity in my work. At 25 I was in America with Quincy Jones ! I had won 3 years earlier the 1St Festival of Athens, then the 2nd Festival of Athens, I had been to Barcelona, I had my first album in Germany. This took me three years. But I had been to 4 countries! Back then artists would not travel out of their countries. I guess I was from the first ones. Maybe the first one to become an ‘European’ singer.

Why do singers cannot have an international career nowadays?
I think it’s more difficult, because the world is open and there are so many countries. But we should not talk only about Greece. Have you seen any German singer going somewhere else from where he is ?

Sakis, that you seem to be fond of him, do you believe he is able of an international career?
These last years he has changed made tremendously. It’s not easy to sing at 33, to be such fit and having the future open for you.

Which one of your failures you remember in a sweet way?
My first failure – but that turned out to be a good think- was the Eurovision. In 1963, 43 years ago, I sang for Luxembourg in French. I spoke French by not perfectly.

Did you translate automatically ?
No. I had learned the language and knew what I was singing about. But when I started to see all those singers there, I said to myself ‘what a pity that I can’t sing in Greek’

You felt uncomfortable ?
Exactly. I was all alone, there were no Greeks around me; I was with French people and other foreigners all the time and suddenly I felt humiliated. As if I was left without my biggest asset: my identity. In the meantime on that evening we were singing without audience in a studio. I had in front of me 2 monitors and I was listening to the orchestra playing through the monitors.

What do you thing of Elena Paparizou ( = the Greek 2005 Eurovision winner ) ?
Ah! She was great. Sakis also would have won if he had a better song and if the Baltic countries didn’t support another one. Although I believe it’s a very bad idea that they sing in English, Paparizou had the asset that she speaks the language very well.

Have you ever thought of being in her place on that night?
No, no. Eurovision is for young people.

Are you happy with the Eurovision taking place in Athens this year?
Yes. It’s an opening for our country and for the artists. We learn from the others. In our country night clubs* imitate one another. Wouldn’t it be great if every night club did something different? Even with only one singer but differently surrounded.

Maybe they are afraid of failure?
Me too I had failures in the beginning. Until I found what suited me. Moreover, you never know what people like. You just do a good song and sing it. You can’t be Number 1 looking after Number 1 only because then you are Number 2. I had been No 1 in Germany for 3 years in a row but then I dropped. And then I went back.

Can you remember of a politician that impressed you?
I can say that Chirac is one of my favorite ones, because I know him and I’ve lived him. I have met Thatcher also and I appreciate her very much because she was a great lady, despite the misery she would bring to people.

Was she an ‘iron lady’ indeed? When you shook hands, was her grip hard?
She was a very self confident lady. Sometimes she might have been at charge of some other country but she was very good in helping her country.

Has a politician ever told you a ‘moto’, something that you remember?
For me great personality in my life was Konstantinos Karamanlis. He had the greatest impact on me in the beginning. I began my career when he was Prime-Minister and when I was in Paris he used to come very often to listen to me. I was his favourite one and he’s always in my life. I will never forget when I gained my first prize he told me ‘From now on you must take care of yourself. You only can beat your own record. There is no number one and number two. You must compete yourself and not concern what others do’. And this I never forgot wherever I went.

He had this for himself as well?
Yes. And he demanded that those who worked with him were like this. I think of him very often because what he told was wise. He used to tell me: ‘Wherever you go, whatever you do, is in the name of your Country’. And I was always afraid of doing something wrong and they say: ‘Look at her, she is Greek, here’s what she did..’ Just as much as I was thinking of my parents and my children. We say that nationalism is a bad think but patriotism, no, it’s not the same thing.

It is as if there are 2 Mouskouris. As if you on Greece from outside and as if you look on the world from Greece…
Yes, I was looking at Greece from the outside. If I couldn’t translate the songs, I was trying to translate the sense. And the foreigners adored me for telling them stories of our songs. Even when I sang ‘Erini where have you been all morning’, the people would laugh. They thought it was cute and very original.

On your last album there is a very nice picture of you, walking on a sea shore without shoes. Do you like to walk bear foot?
Very much. There is nothing between you and the earth. There is a freedom in this. When I get back home, the first thing I do is to take off my shoes

How is a day without work?
I wake up in the morning, I go down to the kitchen and I make 2 coffees with milk. Not 1, but 2. I put them on a tray, like the ones we have in the old ‘kafenia’ ( =the Greek cafes) and take them in bed. I seat on the bed and start the telephones. To friends, to my family, to my sister. The other days I rush and ask them only if they are well but when I’m at home I talk to them.
Then, no matter I have something to do or not, I make my nails. I love doing this, it’s like ‘zen’ Then, it depends. I take my pencils and write down. Lately I’ve started with the computer. When I have more time I draw. I used to draw more than I wrote.
But I took this habit from some questions I gad about life, about friends and about myself. I like to write down a few words.

Your ‘memories’?
No, no memories. Just thoughts.

Do you collect things? Do you have a ‘memories drawer’?
I collect so many things that my house is full of papers, souvenirs, books and records.

Do you keep your concerts’ tickets?
Not all of them. I used to, I had mountains of them but lately I don’t.
Also when I am upset I take out books like Gatsos’ ‘Amorgos’ or ‘Le petit prince’.

Did Nikos Gatsos use to advise you?
Every time I would call him from abroad, crying because something had happened to me, he used to tell me: ‘Don’t take things so dramatically. Study it by yourself. You will find your solution by yourself. No one is going to give you the answer you are looking for’. He used to tell me to put myself in the other’s position. With Gatsos I was like a pupil. He never told me ‘do this or do that’. But he always gave me a way of solving a problem.

I see that you have been in contact with the country’s ‘dream team’!
I have been the luckiest person, I say this where I am: I was 16-17 years old, and the persons that took me into the world were people like Hadjidakis, Gatsos, Tsarouhis (painter), Moralis (painter), Koundouros (director), Dimitris Horn (acto). These people were the crème de la crème. And I was a young girl that had just finished school and sang. I just listened. So, when I left abroad, I had priceless luggage. The fate brought it like this and in France I found myself in the circle of Boris Vian, Juliette Greco, Serge Gainsbourg. I was not an intellectual but they liked my simplicity.

I’ll get back to the cover of your CD. The title is ‘Moni Perpato’ (Alone I walk).
When I was here, I was with my friends. But then, on the road I walked all these 45 years my friends were not with me. I walked this road by myself. I believe that one must be on his own to go further.

So, this album is a ‘bilan’.
This record will be my last one.
In took some songs that I have been singing abroad all these years, Agathi, Gatsos’ companion made the lyrics and some of the young composers gave me some songs.

If you had to live this life from the beginning, would you change something?
No, I would follow the same way. If I did something different, I wouldn’t be here now. I would have become something else.

 

Translation from Greek: Thanasis