KATHIMERINI (March 12, 2006)

 

‘Life is a voyage and I enjoyed it’

Many would envy her endurance and her persistence. Aged 72 Nana Mouskouri decided to stop concerts but does not stop traveling like a 30 year old woman. She continues her World Farewell Tour with sold-out stadiums and concert halls even in Taiwan, Seoul and Tasmania while in Greece she comes back with a new album after 12 years.

‘Alone I walk’ is the title of the new album with 17 Greek and foreign songs. Compositions of Jean Paul Ferland, Charles Aznavour etc with Greek lyrics by Agathi Dimitrouka but also new songs by Nikos Antypas, Stefanos Korkolis, Lina Nikolakopoulou and George Theofanous. Even the clarinetist Vassilis Saleas participates in the album!

In a short pause between all this traveling and the change of planes (from Cuba, to London, two days later in Paris and finally Geneva) we had a talk about the new album, her life and her habits. The woman who knows by heart all the airports of the world is afraid of airplanes and when she doesn’t work she feels guilty! ‘Life is a voyage, not a destination. Voyage matters and I enjoyed it very much’

 

-KATHIMERINI:
What does the title ‘Alone I walk’ mean?
-NANA:
It’s autobiographical. You start your life, take your first lessons from your masters – for me those were Manos Hadjidakis and Nikos Gatsos, although I worked with many- and then you walk by your self. In fact we make our way alone. I threw a stones to find my way back.

-KATHIMERINI:
I didn’t expect that you sing ‘Ta Pedia tis Samarinas’
-NANA:
After 50 years in business , I learned about this song quite accidentally during Semina’s Digeni show. Among the invited artists was Vassilis Saleas, so he asked me if I knew any ‘demotika’ songs (=traditional songs from Northern Greece), I said ‘Gerakina’ (or ‘Droom Droom’). He reminded me the story about the pebble stones and it was as if I found my roots again !

-KATHIMERINI:
I cannot imagine that you listen to songs like that
-NANA:
I listen everything. I might have sung ‘easy listening’ songs but I was in the mood for this kind of songs. I never picked them up because someone promised me that they were going to be a success. Abroad there is no distinction between ‘art music’ and ‘commercial’ music; there is ‘intellectual or sophisticated’ and ‘pop’ music. Just as there is no fear between the new singer and the old one. A young singer can start bad and become the best. In the Anglophone countries singers are not afraid to go to listen to their fellow singers. They join them at the studio, they do ‘back vocal’. It is not easy to accept your fellow singer’s triumph but you learn out of it.

-KATHIMERINI:
How does it feel to release a new album after 12 years?
-NANA:
My fear is very big. There had always been Gatsos and it was different. Since he is gone away, I had not the courage to sing here. But I had to, even for the last time. I could have selected only Greek songs but the thing is that I am not very familiar with the musical things here. In any case I believe in variety. Also I wanted to show to the people what kept me abroad all these years.

-KATHIMERINI:
What criteria did you use to select the foreign songs?
-NANA:
My roots. The common axe was the Mediterranean. Also the lyrics suited the emotions. It’s like a biography.

-KATHIMERINI:
For the first time you work with Antypas, Korkolis, Theofanous and Nikolakopoulou. Did you approach their way or did they yours?
-NANA:
Theofanous gave me 2 songs but I chose the one that ‘suited’ me. The second one had words that didn’t suit me.Once Evanthia Reboutsika proposed me to sing ‘To Tsigaro/ The cigarette’ (**a huge success sung by Yannis Kotsiras in 1997). I told her: Evanthia, how could I possibly sing this song, since I don’t even smoke?’ I would not be real. I have refused many great songs for this same reason.

-KATHIMERINI:
What do you think about the modern Greek music that imitates foreign music in orchestrations, styles and motion?
-NANA:
It’s a pity because there is plenty of talent in our country. Imitation is bad. When I started out there was identity in singing. Manos’ success was precisely this. After ‘Never on Sunday’ in Germany they began to write ‘greek style’ songs.

-KATHIMERINI:
What would you advise young singers like Anna Vissi or Sakis Rouvas who want to make a carrier abroad imitating the foreigners?
-NANA:
To stay themselves. To make a carrier abroad you have to stay abroad. Success is difficult and takes time. Hadjidakis at the end was angry at me because he thought that I had changed a little bit his songs and that they were not ‘completely Greek’. But I traveled the Greek language and music to the five continents. What I mean is that it’s not nice to imitate the Americans or Madonna or Britney but to find something of ours. Sakis and Elena were excellent at the Eurovision but they should have sung in their language.

-KATHIMERINI:
How difficult was for you to remain yourself? Weren’t you requested to be transformed in another blond of the 60s?
-NANA:
The only thing that I agreed was to lose weight. I had to have a good appearance. In this I didn’t lose my courage. Also I insisted in learning well the languages I was going to sing to and let be influenced by the environment. Or I would remain a stranger. You have to give something in these cases. Understand their mentality so that they understand you.

-KATHIMERINI:
This is why we won the Eurovision last year?
-NANA:
I don’t think Elena won because she sang in English. She won because she made a great performance. She danced and sang well. The song in terms of lyrics was very poor.

-KATHIMERINI:
When you left abroad you already knew all these languages?
-NANA:
Just school’s French and English from songs I heard on the radio. When I went for the first time to Germany they asked me ‘Can you sing in German?’ I sang a couple of songs I had memorized from films; completely by vocalizing. But afterwards I began to study because it’s not fair to sing a language you don’t speak. It’s as if you pretend. This is how I learned English, French, German, Italian, a little Dutch and some dialects. I remember, when I went to bed I had a tape player with me so that I can pronounce correctly.

-KATHIMERINI:
This means persistence
-NANA:
Since I was a little girl I had many complexes. That I was ugly, I was fat and not interested at all. The only thing I was interested in was singing. Following this road I knew there were beautiful singers everywhere but also I knew that there was Ella Fitzgerald a.m.o.. Fat but nothing stopped them from being good interpreters. So, the more they insisted on me taking off my glasses, the more I insisted on my opinion. The people had to love me for what I was. They still ask me to take my glasses off, to change my hair but why? I have accepted my face for many years, why change now ?

-KATHIMERINI:
Have you been lucky?
-NANA:
Very much. But also I worked very hard. Newly-married and I kept traveling. I had to sacrifice something in order to succeed in my work.

-KATHIMERINI:
And the price?
-NANA:
I was not a good wife nor the best mother. I was very close to my children, took them with me until they were 8 but when they went to school they had to stay at home. I was not one of these mothers that are devoted to their children.

-KATHIMERINI:
Today is there a place you feel at home or do you feel everywhere a stranger?
-NANA:
I struggled in every country to be considered as one of them but in the same time I feel ‘without a homeland’. This is loneliness. But I tried hard not to lose my identity. I learned in every country their language and their culture but never forgot where I come from.

-KATHIMERINI:
You talked about loneliness, how do get along?
-NANA:
It’s the loneliness that every artist feels when on stage ‘naked’. It’s like when you ask for love from the audience and they give it to you. But when you go back to your Hotel room, the most luxurious Palace of the world it may be, you feel alone. Creation leaves you by yourself. All those endless time of solitude, wherever I was, Gatsos was my refuge. He used to say to me that a man can only be understood with himself, be accepted by himself and learn to live with himself.

-KATHIMERINI:
And so this is how 50 entire years of carrier – 45 of them abroad- went by?
-NANA:
I was like a horse that raises to please the people that were watching it, loved it and supported it.

-KATHIMERINI:
You met many great personalities: Dylan, Baez, Cohen, Belafonte, Brel, Alain Delon, Dietrich etc. Do you remember any piece of advise they gave you?
-NANA:
The most important piece of advise I was ever given was that of Maria Callas: ‘ you better be a very good easy-listening singer than a bad a bad soprano’. I think of this very often. And my conclusion is that what matters is not what but how you sing it.

-KATHIMERINI:
You have lived a very impressive life. Impressive were your love affairs?
-NANA:
I was absorbed in singing. It was as if singing replaced my erotic life. Looking back I remember what I felt as a young girl: that nobody would pay any attention to me, nobody flirted me, and when someone did, I used to believe that they made me a favour ! For years when someone smiled at me I thought to my self ‘My God, it is not possible’. So, why singing became my weapon.

-KATHIMERINI:
On the other side, you were bold enough to divorce and stand on your feet with 2 children at the age of 40 alone in Europe.
-NANA:
It was not easy. I remember, when I was coming to Greece my mother used to tell me: ‘How am I going to face the neighbors?’ But the question of freedom is very important to me. I live as much as in singing. After Manos I didn’t accept anyone tell me ‘you’ll do this’.

-KATHIMERINI:
Since last year you are holding your World Farewell Tour which will end in Athens in 2007. Your are saying that this one will be your last album. Will you be strong enough to keep your word?
-NANA:
It sounds strange when I say it, but with this tour I want to say a Thank you to the people. They loved me and now their children tell me that they grew up with my songs. I thank them because they supported me. Like this I survived as a person and as a singer. Many want to die on stage. I don’t. I don’t want that the people take a pity on me. I want to leave winner.

-KATHIMERINI:
Most Greeks are not aware of the fact that you are one out of the five best-selling artists in the world.
-NANA:
And still, I was never interested in being one. I realized soon that when you are number 1 you can easily be number. Important is to beat your own records so that you can last longer.

 

Translation from Greek: Thanasis