"I like to concentrate on
the poetry and the message
in the songs I'm singing."

- Nana Mouskouri -

Articles

UK

That hair. Those glasses. Nana Mouskouri's image has been with us for more than 30 years. She is the biggest-selling female singer in the world, but can you hum any of her tunes? Dea Birkett meets the pop icon whose heart belongs to everyone.

Love is in the air. It's in the crimson soft furnishings, in the pendulous chandeliers, in the Diet Coke my charming companion is sipping, in every sweet, unaffected sentence she utters. Nana simply can't stop talking about the power of love. "Love is for me everything. We need to fell that we are loved, we are appreciated. Love is to be appreciated," she says, her perfectly glossed lips separating around the straw.

We may be sitting in a Parisian hotel lobby, but we're in a land where the only language is lines from my 64-year-old companion's slushy, over-sentimental songs. Our conversation contains no meaning beyond them: "I realised that if I was singing, there was love for me, people liked me. And it's so important to feel that you are loved. And in order to be loved, you have to deserve it."

The world's best-selling female singer is addicted to obvious affection. She craves it, feeds on it, and ladles it out by the load. Our meeting began with me cynically counting the number of times the bespectacled woman sitting opposite uttered the word "love". I counted 23. "A record for an interview?" I jotted down in my notebook. A further 10 minutes, and there had been 15 more. But sentimentality is seductive, and within half an hour my own sentences were littered with soft, shallow mutterings, and I, too, sounded like a stuck record. Something had gotten hold of my heart. Before long, I found myself half-humming, half-asking, "What is love about?"

This was not how I had intended our encounter to begin. I had been determined to go in hard. "Why do you always part your hair down the middle?' and"Is that plain glass in your spectacles?" were the two questions I had lined up to fire first. Destroy the woman's accoutrements, I thought, and she'd be stripped bare. There's nothing more to Nana Mouskouri than a distinctive hairdo and some outdated face furniture.

But, oh, how deceived I had been. Nana Mouskouri has sold more than 200 million records, receiving over 300 gold, platinum and diamond discs. Adaptation rather than innovation is her style, transforming even the most demanding lyric into easy listening. Her songs are nearly always written for others and then executed, often more successfully, by Nana. There are no frontiers in her musical world. She's attempted The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Kris Kirstofferson, James Taylor, Dolly Parton, Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Bette Midler, Charles Aznavour, Edith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich, Neil Young, Georges Bizet, Neil Sedaka, Franz Schubert, Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Carole King and Don Maclean.

She's recorded more than 1,350 songs, in German, English, french, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese, Japanese, Dutch, Hebrew, Italian and Corsican. It's often not possible to tell in which language she's singing - as if it mattered. She always sings in Nana-speak. Her singing always sounds so effortless. It demands only to be listened to; her apparent ease puts us at east. It reminds us, perhaps, of being sung to sleep as children; it is comforting, lulling, never threatening. She doesn't belt but oozes out the tune, as if there were nothing more natural than singing before thousands. She isn't showy on stage; it is her quietness that holds us, the suggestion that each of us is alone with her.

She appeals to the most simple and basic emotion in everyone, anywhere. She is passion without the merest soupcon of smut. She is the ambassador of untainted, asexual love, and every continent embraces her universal message. She's vast in Venezuela and big in Korea. When a concert in Christchurch, New Zealand, was transmitted on the radio, a telegram arrived from a base at the South Pole. "Dear Nana, We're so sorry not to be at the concert tonight, but we still are so happy that you are only a three-hour flight away from us." Only in Britain does the whiff of cynicism linger over her. Only here is she seen as a joke.

Joanna "Nana" Mouskouri started looking for love at a young age. She was born in Crete on October 13, 1936, the daughter of a cinema projectionist. Two years later, they moved to Athens and lived in a house behind the open-air cinema where her father worked. It was the eve of world war. "I remember the bombs and the horror, the people I saw dead from hunger in the street. When you see things like that, you never forget. The first thing I asked my father was, why people die. He said because people don't like each other, they hate each other, and that's when they make war. I thought there was no love. So I started to search for love since I was a little girl. I used to say there must be some love alive inside of me."

Already, she was composing the soundtrack of her future career. Her mother, a thwarted singer, enrolled her two daughters at the Hellenic Conservatoire in Athens, where Nana remained for nine years. Seduced by the city's nightclubs, where she began to work, she was asked to leave the classical conservatory. Success came seemingly without effort, winning every competition that she entered, from the first Greek Song Festival to the 1960 Mediterranean festival in Barcelona. In 1961, she had her first gold record with White Rose Of Athens, selling more than one and a half million copies in Germany alone. She was only 25, and the four-lettered word - love - was already her hallmark. "I had so many complexes when I was younger. I thought I wasn't worth anything. The only thing I realised - when I was singing, is that people would simile to me, would like me. So it became somehow my security, singing. Singing made me come out of all my complexes, trust the world, trust that there is love.,"

Her life and her lyrics became indistinguishable. A year later, she was in New York with Quincy Jones recording the classic jazz album, A Girl From Greece Sings. Two years later, she represented Luxembourg in the Eurovision song contest. If love was her slogan, versatility was her strength. The night of the contest, Harry Belafonte happened to be in town and watched Nana's performance on TV. He remembered once seeing the young Greek singer in an Athens nightclub, asked to be introduced and invited her to audition in New York. From 1964 to 1966, they toured North America together. "He was the artiste who influenced me most, encouraged me to be myself no matter what happens. Harry taught me how to choose my songs in order to give my personal message," she says.

In 1969, her first record for the English market, Over And Over, was released. It stayed in the charts for more than 100 weeks. Her first concert at London's Albert Hall sold out in hours. The BBC launched a television series, Nana With Guests. At Last, Britain, too, was in love with her.

France had already fallen. And characteristically, she thanked them for it by adopting it as her homeland. Now living in Paris and Geneva, she takes me to the Olympia Theatre and we sit the empty late-afternoon seats, staring at the empty stage, reminiscing, Nana-style. "I remember the first time when I came here in the 60s and I saw Edith Piaf. I couldn't understand one word of what she was singing. But I was so moved, so moved. I was crying. I was so impressed, this little woman singing on that stage. When I went out, my friend took me across the street and I looked at the lights and the name of Edith Piaf. My friend said, 'Well, you look at this name now. One day your name will be written there.' I said 'No, no. It will be far from possible.' I didn't dare say that I am able to go on that stage where that wonderful woman was. For me it was a sacred stage. It was a place I never thought I would be able to sing myself."

But, of course, she did. Shortly afterwards, in 1969, she was asked to replace Gilbert Becaud for a three-week run. She was three months pregnant with her first child, Nicholas. "We had only Monday off, and on Sunday we had two concerts. I sang Farewell Angelina, Ton Amour, Little Drummer Boy ... It was a big break for me. Artistically, I was born at the Olympia."

Nana is modest, but not self-deprecating. She knows her biggest help has been herself. "The door was opened for me, and I recognised it was a good door. This is one thing to my credit. The ancient Greeks, they used to say that Lady Luck is a very beautiful girl with magnificent curly hair and she walks among other people in the street. One should recognise her and grab her from the hair, out front, because behind she is bald. When I was asked to play here, reasonably I should have said 'No', because I was pregnant. But then I said, 'I have nothing to lose'. I should try it. And I didn't lose."

But to conquer the world, love is not enough. "Discipline," says Nana, in an accent that makes it sound like a dirty word, the only one in her multilingual vocabulary. "It's important to live in discipline." Twenty days after giving birth to her second child, Helen, who now sings with her, she went back to work. Every day since, she has lain on her back, placed a box on her diaphragm, and done breathing exercises, watching the box move up and down. Then she tucks her toes under a bar and does sit-ups. For 40 years, she has been singing two hours each morning. If she has a concert in the evening, she sings for two hours in the afternoon as well.

"In the bath?" I joke, and for the first time she look sat me with disapproval.

"Music for me was never a pastime," she says. "I don't sing in my bathroom, not at all. It is a serious thing. I have a studio in geneva, and here in Paris I have a small room in my apartment. I'm there by myself with a small piano. I want to be concentrated in it, that is very important. You can never achieve something if you don't take it seriously."

She has little sympathy for shirkers. "You have to choose a certain way in your life. When I was young, all the other girls smoked. But I realised that if I wanted to be a singer, it wasn't healthy. If I have to work the next day, I have to go to sleep early."

Lack of civic discipline is why she now finds Athens impossible for any more than brief visits, although she remains patriotic to her birthplace, having represented Greece in the European Parliament and campaigned for the return of the Parthenon Marbles.

"Discipline," she mutters.

After two days together, I begin to take risks. I decide it's time to make a request I haven't dared earlier, for fear of causing offence. She famously refused one journalist with a shriek of, "Oh, no, I feel naked without them!"

"Could you possible take off your glasses?" I ask, ready to receive her rare wrath.

"Yes, of course," she replies immediately. Without the black frames, she looks even younger, and wonderfully girlish. "I cannot see beyond two to three metres," she says, waving her black rims around. "I thought I was ugly as I was, and with glasses I was even worse. The doctor told me, "If you wear your glasses, your poor sight will not get worse. But if you don't wear them, it will be worse.' I just started regularly to wear them, although I hated them." She was nine years old. "This is discipline," she explains.

Little did the doctor know that those frames would become the most famous pair of spectacles in the world. We can all draw a picture of them by heart. "When I became very popular, they said, 'Now you can't go around like this with those glasses, being like you are. You have to become blonde, be fashionable.' And I said, 'No, if the people like me like this, maybe they will go on liking me like this. There is no reason, why should I change.' And I wanted to be hones with myself and stay as I was. I stayed like this."

Her hair never grows, her gold hoop earrings never tarnish. I tentatively suggest that most women, by the time they reach their 60s, have experimented with a number of different styles, or at least different haircuts. "No me," pipes up Nana. "I spent my time until 25 or so trying to change. I tried to cut my hair, long hair, braids, everything. And then one day I realised my hair was like this. And then I didn't want to change. It was not an image, but it became an image. Of course, today I have to put colour shampoo in my hair because it is white."

Artifice, like sex appeal, appears to pass this lady by. Perhaps that is why a myopic Greek girl became the most successful, enduring female solo artist in the world? Nana thinks so. "Because I was very honest and sincere about what I was doing. And maybe because it was so simple. not at all complicated. Others are prima donnas or artistes that people idolise, but they don't touch them. Me, I was a person that they could touch. I remember when I was pregnant with my son, everybody would write to me letters - I have problem with my children, I have problem with my husband. I was like a family, and I still am. I am part of them, of the people, in many countries."

We often judge others by their friends. Nana Mouskouri should be judged by her fans. Her importance to them cannot be underestimated. Their devotion is not subject to the whims of fashion. They are not fickle. They do not desert her. They stand by her for years, from puberty to approaching their pensions. And, despite what you may presume, they are not all blue-rinsed ladies. She has a huge young gay male following. (One joke goes, "How do you come out to your parents? Show them your Nana Mouskouri collection") Her fans don't care if the rest of us snigger. They are self-aware enough to dub themselves Nana-raks or Mousketeers. Please do remember, Nana rose to fame before stars became suspicious of their following. It was before Pink Floyd built The Wall to keep them from their adoring supporters, the same people who bought their records and made them millions. Before Posh and Becks had Chester Zoo closed to the public so they could take around baby Brooklyn unpestered. Before Madonna spent just 30 minutes on stage at her latest Brixton concert, calculating that would be enough to satisfy the adoring throng.

Nana has always like her fans. Se feels indebted to them. "What I needed all my life is to be loved. I sing my songs and I get this love I need to have. That's what I get back." She's never had a bodyguard. We walked along a Paris street together, her with that hair and those glasses, and people stopped to shake her hand. She said she likes being recognised. She never spends less than two and a half hours on stage; she says she feels she owes it to those who have come to give them a good evening. She is fond of her fans, and wears a brooch given to her by a DAnish fan - a ruby encrusted red ribbon.

It's not surprising, therefore, that her songs sell so well. People rarely buy one or two Nana CDs; they buy all of them, every record, every re-release. They are loyal to her because she is loyal to them. In a tumultuous industry, she's remained with the same record company throughout her career. "They worked with me to make it. Why should I leave now that I've made it?" she asks.

David has every one of her albums, more than 800 of them. He's a sensible, highly successful 43-year-old director who lives in Brighton. He is also a proud Mousketeer. I introduced David and Nana over lunch in, at Nana's suggestion, Cafe de Flore on Boulevard St Germain, where de Beauvoir and Sartre used to hang out. I was nervous about the meeting. Stars are often snooty towards their fans. But within a few precious moments, Nana and David were huddled up in the booth. Listening in to their conversation was like intruding on long lost lovers. There was continual declarations of affection for each other. "I was 16 and having some trouble in my life, and then I switched on the television and you were singing. I thought - this woman understands," starts David. The song was I Dreamed You. (I start humming ...)

"I set out to sing searching for love with a big, big love. Then somebody listens and need the same thing." says Nana.

"You've never let me down. You have been the soundtrack of my life. There's not a day I don't play your music," says David taking a break to order Croque Madame. Nana, like a dutiful lover, orders the same.

"There's so much love in your work," says David. She grasps his arm: "Oh, you make me cry." The Croque Madame arrives. It may be just fried egg and cheese on toast, but Nana declares it delicious, the perfect choice. "I sing for one person. I do not sing for everybody. But then everybody is one," she says.

"We all think it's our Nana. Everybody," responds DAvid.

"I don't sing complicated things. Just simple things," says Nana. "But they are the most essential." Then, still close, they laugh, remembering Benny Hills imitation of her, as if sharing an intimate memory. They remember when she was on Morecambe & Wise, Dame Edna ... David remembers his first Nana concert, in Eastbourne in 1976. "Eastbourne!" he says, and they laugh again.

Andre Chapelle enters the restaurant. Andre has been with Nana for more than 20 years, first as her sound engineer, then as her partner after the break-up of her marriage to Greek guitarist George Petsilas. One day, she says, they may get married, they always mean to. Andre is Nana's underbelly. While she dressed conservatively, classically, with a smudge of bright red lipstick, Andre is a dandy who seems to have clothed himself from a child's dressing-up box. He's wearing a peach-coloured, box-shaped jacket, which even Oxfam would have a problem putting a price on. While Nana's decorations are tastefully understated, Andre sports (rather than wears) an emerald flowered tie, gold watch and gold link bracelet. He carries his wallet around in something rather like a mock Victorian frilly washbag, strung from his wrist. Nor do they seem to share a hairdresser. from under his 10-gallon hat sprouts a mane of long, grey, fine frizzy hair. I keep thinking he reminds me of someone, and then I remember who: Wurzel Gummidge. Partly because of his look and partly because, like Wurzel, he seem sot have wandered out of another decade without realising that he's done so. Andre is dated, while Nana remains dateless.

I ask Andre his age. He refused to tell me. Nana is obviously irritated; she has no such inhibitions. After all, she has already mentioned that her hallmark black hair is dyed. But Andre is not so open with the press. "Elle est journaliste," he spits.

"Tell her," Nana snaps back at Wurzel. "Once you've told her, it's done." He pretends he hasn't heard her. They hiss at each other at intervals throughout the meal. Nana's publicity woman whispers in my ear, "They'll be having an argument about that all the way home." Ah, love is a rocky road. Later, when we're alone, Nana tells me, "Andre is 60."

Why have we forsaken this honest, lovely lady? Were did our love go? For almost 20 years, since Nana With Guests folded in 1981, she has been lost in an emotional wilderness. While she continued to tour and soar throughout the rest of Britain hardened its heart. That hairdo! Those glasses! The only people who were proud of her image were female impersonators.

But that was the 80s, when we were all material girls and boys. Perhaps the tide of emotion has changed. Perhaps we are ready, once again, for Nana Mouskouri. Perhaps it is time to cast out cynicism. Perhaps we will, after all, get back that loving feeling. We just have to hum it, and she'll surely sing it.

As we parted, sitting close in the back of her chauffeur-driven car, Nana, her helmet of hair intact, leant over and said, full of meaning, "Thank you so much for introducing me to David. It was really, really ..." She is looking for words. "Lovely."

A few day slater, I received a note from David. "Thank you so much for introducing me to Nana. Now I know it's true - dreams can come true." That's love for you.

• At Her Very Best, a CD anthology of Nana Mouskouri's greatest tracks, is out this week. Her first UK tour in 12 years starts in April.