An Xtra Happy Birthday; week 35

This week, like last week and just about every other week of the year, there are quite a few Eurovision artists who celebrate their birthday! We only have one winner this week, Dana Rosemary Scallon herself. But we also give you a couple that quite a few people think *should have won*. August 27th Soluna Samay, 28 Soluna Samay represented Denmark at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku. She was chosen as a wildcard entry by DR1 for the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. The song "Should've Know Better" won the national final, and thus got to perform in Baku. During her performance, Soluna wore an interesting outfit, including a sailors hat and her guitar. She ended with getting 21 points in the final, which landed her in 23rd place out of 26. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5X2r_t-KBk August 28th Gry Johansen, 54 Gry won Dansk Melodi Grand Prix in 1983 with the the song “Kloden drejer (The globe spins)”. Therefor she got to represent Denmark at Eurovision in Munich, Germany. She gave us a lively performance with interesting outfits and “shrimp” back up. She scored 16 points at the final, which gave her 17th place out of 20. In addition, this wasn't Gry's first participation in Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. She was a backup singer already in 1980, when she was 15 years old. Furthermore it wasn't her last time either, she entered three more times, in 1985, 1989 and 2000. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq31LT_ET0Y August 30th Dana Rosemary Scallon, 67 Dana, as she is mostly know as, entered the Irish National Song Contest for the first time in 1989, but was a runner up. The producer was impressed by her performance, as she was only 17 years old at that time, asked her to try again next year. He thought a song called “All Kinds of Everything” would suit her well. Indeed it did, she won the National Selection and got to represent Ireland in Amsterdam. She sang last on stage and earned 32 points giving Ireland it´s first of total victories at Eurovision. Not only did her song “All Kinds of Everything” became a huge success in Ireland and in UK, it came a hit around the world. With more then 2 millions copies sold! Impressive! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br_yoYp3v7I Laura Poldvere, 30 Laura is really well known singer in Estonia. She is also known in the Eurovision world, as she has won both second and first place at Eurolaul/Eestilaul (The Estonian National Selection)! The girl group Suntribe won with the song “Let's get loud”, and Laura was a part of that group. They represented Estonia in Ukraine in 2005, however failed to advance to the final. Laura clearly got hooked on Eurovision, like most of our readers are, as she entered the Estonian National selection four more times! In 2007, 2009, 2016 and 2017! On her latest attempt she won with the song “Verona”, as a part of a duo with Koit Toome. Koit is also a former Eurovision representative of Estonia. Remarkably, she got to performe again in the same city, 13 years later, Kyiv. Despite having really good odds of qualifying from the 2nd semi-final, the song did not advance to the final. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxqPpzWYN1c August 31st Inga, 46 Inga, or Ingibjörg Stefánsdóttir, represented Iceland in the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest in Millstreet. She performed the song “Þá veistu svarið”, finishing in a fairly respectable 13th place. Thus placing within the upper part of what I like to call “the Icelandic part of the scoreboard”; 12th to 20th. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MpMzQ9PxgQ Karoliina Kallio, 39 Karoliina represented Finland in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow. She was part of the group Waldo’s People. They performed the song “Lose Control”, qualifying for the final through the backup jury selection. Without the jury they would not have qualified, since the televoters had them in 12th place. In the grand final they finished last, with a total of 22 points. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Wr0z1_quw September 1st Birthe Kjær, 70 After few attempts Birthe got to repecent Denmark at Eurovision in 1989, with the song called “Vi maler byen rød”. With three backup singers/dancers in white suits she became 3rd in Lausanne, Switzerland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPkdWtjU9oE Vanna, 48 Vanna took part at the national selection in Croatia, with the song "Dora" and was a runner up. However her chance at Eurovision stage came year when she won the section with "Struneljubavi". She therefore took part in Copenhagen in 2001. This time the song was also sung in English and called "Strings of My Heart".The song did well, that is it placed in 10th place at the end of the Contest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKw7TFWdUTg Renars Kaupers, 44 Renars Kaupers is the lead singer of the band “Brainstorm”. They were Latvia´s debuts entry at Eurovision Song Contest in 2000. The song is called “My star” set the standard high for Latvia, for they took the 3rd place that year! In addtion he co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in Riga with Marie N. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1y9xhmMSDk Stella Mwangi, 32 Connecting with her Kenyan roots, Stella sang for Norway in 2011 in Germany! Happy tune but got the sad ending of not qualifying to the Final. But she has become successful in Norway and few of her songs are used in films and TV´s shows. She also took part in the national selection for Norway in 2018 along with Alexandra Rotan, and sang "You Got Me" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl-NywwY4mg Martina Barta, 30 This birthday girl performed this year in Kyiv and sang the ballad “My Turn”. Martina performed for Czech Republic. The song is sweet and romantic and had a lot of dancers on the background screens, however it failed to advance to the final. Maybe she will get another turn at Eurovision, who knows. And maybe with new focus Czech Republic will go to the final. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KT8_ZOHAXE Lea Sirk, 29 In 2018, Slovenia picked the talented Lea to be their performer in Lisbon. She went with a bold brake in the middle of the song, "Hvala, ne!". That payed off, because Sirk made it to the final, where she placed 22nd. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBU0_hfST_o Ann-Sophie, 28 From the same year as Melanie Réne, Ann Sophie performed in Austria for Germany. The song “Black Smoke” is about that things were over and nothing left to be, which unfortunately became the fate of the song in the final and got no points. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGMJOchTRPc Melanie René, 28 In Vienna 2015, Melanie sang for Switzerland, with a song called “Time to Shine”. Like most recent Swiss entries, the song did not do that well. But we hope she continues to use her lovely singing voice, here is a short acoustic version of her song that she song for us here at escXtra. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya1r_nFHiCQ September 2nd Ruth Jacott, 58 Netherlands decided to let Ruth perform their Eurovision entry in 1993. The entry "Vrede" was a favorite to win. Even though it did not win it did well and Ruth placed 5th at the Contest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs8a8-YDhD4 Elitsa Todorova, 41 Elitsa is a Bulgerian folk singer and sings in her own language. She and Stoyans have performed two times for Bulgaria! First of all they sang in 2007 with the song “Water” and did a great job in Helsinki. After advancing from the semi final, it made it all the way up to 5th place! Secondly they performed in Malmo in 2013 with a song called “Samo Shampioni”. However this time they failed to make it to the final. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb46Mhy_mCI Tatiana Okupnik, 40 Poland selected the band Blue Cafe to be their act at Eurovision in 2004. Tatiana was the lead singer of that band. Therefore they song "Love Song" at the final in Istanbul. The song got 27 points, that means it ended in 22th place out of 24 countries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWS-S53Zsio Donatan, 34 Poland had been on brake from Eurovison since 2012 and entered again in 2014. Donatan and Cleo represented Poland in Copenhagen. The song is called “My slowianie”. Even though Donatan did not actually go on the stage, we will let it pass. After all it´s his birthday. The performance was quite interesting and seemed to appeal to the public! It qualified from the semi final and advanced to the final. Despite that the public placed the song 5th, the jury was not so impressed. Letting “My Slowiane” end up in 14th place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ920cN2HmA Stevan Faddy, 32 Stevan represented Montenegro in 2007 in Helsinki, after a huge victory at MontenegroSong 2007. His rock song “Adje Kroci” was the first act of Montenegro in Eurovision after it independence. Unfortunately it came short of reaching to the final. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNXURugfanw All of us here at escXtra wish all of this week's Eurvision birthday boys and girls the happiest of celebrations!

An Xtra Happy Birthday; week 35

August 28th

Gry Johansen, 54

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

REVEALED: The Eurovision 2023 semi-final and final jury/televote detailed voting results

EBU reveals six national juries were removed from Eurovision 2022

REVEALED: The Eurovision 2022 semi-final and final jury/televote split voting results

🇬🇧 BBC dismisses viewer complaints regarding Eurovision 2021

EBU reveals six national juries were removed from Eurovision 2022

Simon Cowell ‘interested’ in leading UK selection

Netta and Mikolas Josef receive a miserably cold reception on German TV

🇬🇧 60% of televoting countries put the United Kingdom bottom two at Eurovision 2021

🇫🇷 France would have won Eurovision 2021 with the “old” voting system

August 28th

Gry Johansen, 54

Related Articles

Make your Eurovision Prediction for Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania and Moldova!

Make your Eurovision Prediction for Norway!

Make your Eurovision Prediction for Spain!

Make your Eurovision Prediction for Ireland!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

REVEALED: The Eurovision 2023 semi-final and final jury/televote detailed voting results

EBU reveals six national juries were removed from Eurovision 2022

REVEALED: The Eurovision 2022 semi-final and final jury/televote split voting results

🇬🇧 BBC dismisses viewer complaints regarding Eurovision 2021

EBU reveals six national juries were removed from Eurovision 2022

Simon Cowell ‘interested’ in leading UK selection

Netta and Mikolas Josef receive a miserably cold reception on German TV

🇬🇧 60% of televoting countries put the United Kingdom bottom two at Eurovision 2021

🇫🇷 France would have won Eurovision 2021 with the “old” voting system