The queen of pop who sold more than Madonna... it’s Nana, 83
voice but Nana had “a need” to sing. “So my sister sacrificed herself,” says Nana. “I didn’t realise it at the time but later I felt guilty.” After eight years’ classical study, hard-up Nana began performing in jazz clubs. But when her stuffy professor found out he banned Nana from taking her exams and she left. “It was very sad as my parents thought classical music was everything,” she says. “But it was the start of something wonderful.” In 1957 Nana recorded her first single, Fascination, in English and Greek (she is fluent in six languages). Sent to sing for 5,000 men on a US Navy ship in 1959, she saw the entertainment manager’s disappointment at her appearance.
But Nana told him: “I do not look nice, but I sing well.”
And, with her first song, that incredible voice had the sailors in the palm of her hand.
She said: “I moved to Paris the following year and a friend got me interested in fashion.
“I realised if I lost weight I could wear nice clothes.”
However she resisted the 60s idea of female sexiness. “People said, ‘Nana you must dye your hair blonde and get rid of the glasses!’ But I said ‘No. People will like me for my singing, not my glasses.’”
In 1959, aged 25, she had married Yorgos Petsilas, a guitarist in her backing band, The Athenians. They had a son, Nicolas, and a daughter, Helene, but divorced in 1975.
Soon after she met her current partner, music producer Andre Chappelle, who she wed in 2003.
In 1961 Nana set aside her painful war memories to record a single in German, Weisse Rosen Aus Athens, (White Roses From Athens).
It was re-recorded in several languages, won Nana her first gold disc and became a signature tune.
Then she met a young Quincy Jones, who took her to New York to record a jazz album. Hits followed and in 1966 Nana joined actor and singer Harry Belafonte on tour.
But, she explained: “Harry told me I could not wear my glasses on stage and, for two days, I tried. But I couldn’t see and it did not feel right. I told Harry ‘If
I can’t wear them, I quit’. So he let me.”
British fans loved her and, in
1968 she was given her TV show, Presenting
Nana Mouskouri.
Her LP, Over and
Over, spent two years in the UK charts.
Nana would sing traditional songs in different Barker as his Nana character