Alexandra

Our pick of the pops

Alexandra offered an altogether different sound to her fellow German singers. Her death just over a year after her chart debut has ensured her a lasting cult status.

She was born Doris Treitz on 19 May 1942 in what was then the German town of Heydekrug and is now Silute in Lithuania. Her family moved and she spent her youth in the north German towns of Kiel and Hamburg. She dreamed of becoming a singer and while studying design at college, she took part-time jobs and used the money to buy herself a guitar.

After marrying Russian immigrant Nikolai Nefedov at the age of 20, the pair went to the United States. But the marriage broke down inside two years, leaving the now single mother to return to Germany and pursue a career as a singer. She sang with the Hamburg-based group the City Preachers for a short while in 1965.

Shortly afterwards, she was spotted by record producer Fred Weyrich, who liked the melancholic tone of her voice and saw a gap in the market for her.

Her first release was, unusually, an album, in 1967. Entitled Premiere mit Alexandra, it generated interest in the singer, but it was not until 1968 that she enjoyed her first hit, with Zigeunerjunge,

the story of an unrequited love for a gypsy boy. Its mixture of folk charm and eastern European promise established her style.

Over the years, she wrote a number of her

own songs, co-wrote material with Austrian

star Udo Jürgens and translated the lyrics of

French chansons.

Her biggest hit came, ironically, with a song she

disliked but was forced to sing by her manager

and producer. Sehnsucht narrowly missed out

on the top ten but spent over six months in

the German charts in 1968.

She enjoyed a further hit with the dramatic

Illusionen, which was covered by Shirley

Bassey as If I never sing another song and

featured Auf dem Wege nach Odessa on

the reverse.

However, subsequent singles Schwarze

Balalaika and Mein Freund der Baum missed

the mark.

Her final hit came with Erstes Morgenrot. However, less than two weeks after its release in July 1969, the singer died in a car accident.

The excellent Grau zieht der Nebel was plucked from the vaults of record label Philips for release (in a suitably sombre picture sleeve), becoming the first of a string of singles to be issued following her death.