Dorthe's German recordings

Our pick of the pops

Having performed some of the best Schlager of the 1960s, Danish singer Dorthe is still a popular choice on German television and radio.

Dorthe Larsen was born on 17 July 1947 in the Danish capital of Copenhagen and recorded her first single at the age of 12. She was well known in her homeland before trying her luck in neighbouring Germany.

She failed on her first attempt, with Eine Menge Verehrer, which she sang at the 1963 Deutsche Schlagerfestspielen in Baden-Baden, but didn’t make the final.

The following year, Junger Mann mit rotten Rosen earned the 17 year old fifth place in the Schlagerfestspielen and her first German top 20 hit.

Her brand of unrelentingly cheery music continued with songs such as 1965’s Dip-di-dip (du passt gut zu mir) and Blondes Haar am Paletot (an aural doppelganger for Connie Francis’ Lipstick on your collar).

Her only attempt at a beat sound came with the 1966

B side Darauf fall’ ich nicht rein (Come on my boy). The single flopped. A year later she released Frag jedes Mädchen, a cover of one of Sandie Shaw's A song for Europe entries, Ask

any woman.

But then the singer, by now married to opera

singer René Kollo, returned to more familiar

territory with Sind Sie der Graf von

Luxemburg? The song, her biggest hit in

Germany, told the trite tale of a girl

prancing round the low countries asking

complete strangers if they were, by chance,

the count from the famous operetta. It spent

four months in the German top ten, peaking

at number five, and is considered a Schlager

classic today.

The follow up, Wärst du doch in Düsseldorf

geblieben, was a song she performed at

1968’s Schlager-Wettbewerb song contest,

finishing second behind Sweden’s Siw

Malmkvist and ahead of French yéyé girl

France Gall and Germany’s Renate Kern. It also made the German top ten.

She enjoyed two further hits in the 1960s, with Jeder Schotte (which came complete with bagpipe sound effects) and Seine Hoheit der Herr Kronprinz.

Dorthe carried on singing and performing in subsequent decades, particularly in her homeland, Denmark.