Manuela

Our pick of the pops

Manuela was Germany’s favourite female singer of the 1960s, enjoying a run of 24 top 40 hits between 1963 and 1972.

She was born Doris Wegener on 18 August 1943 in the Berlin district of Wedding.

At 16 she began working in a local factory and spent her lunchtimes writing song lyrics that she would set to music on her guitar of an evening. She took singing lessons for a year and began performing in amateur nights in a Berlin bar with all-girl group the Tahiti Tamoures.

After winning a local talent contest, she was offered a recording contract. Given Germany’s enthusiasm for all things foreign, the young singer took the stage name Manuela.

Her debut single flopped and her record company turned down her proposal for a second single, claiming it wouldn’t be a hit. So her manager approached the Hamburg-based Telefunken label with the song. Bosses there liked it and gave the young singer a contract.

Their faith paid off. Schuld war nur der Bossa Nova, a cover of Eydie Gorme’s Blame it on the bossa nova, topped the German charts in the spring of 1963, selling over 500,000 copies and remaining in the top ten for 21 weeks.

Ich geh’ noch zur Schule, a cover of On

top of Old Smokey, was chosen as the

follow up. It reached number four and spent

four months on the charts.

Now backed by the groups Die 5 Dops,

further hits followed, with 1964’s Schwimmen

lernt man im See and Schneeman, and

1965’s Küsse unterm Regenbogen and

Love and kisses.

Manuela’s brand of rock ‘n’ roll, beat and

Schlager earned her the position of Germany’s

top female singer of the 1960s. Despite a

rather underwhelming stage presence, she

became a teen idol, and her clothes and hair

were copied by girls throughout the country.

In 1966, she tried a move away from the

saccharine-sweet material that had made her name. The more mature Es ist zum Weinen made the top ten and boded well for her new sound. However, her next step, a duet with beat singer Drafi Deutscher, Die goldene Zeit, confused record buyers and gave Manuela her lowest chart placing to date, just scraping into the top 40.

A return to more familiar territory with Lord Leicester aus Manchester helped her regain her position. The follow up, Monsieur Dupont, was embarrassingly similar, though it took its inspiration from France rather than England. Nevertheless it gave her another top ten hit in 1967 (and was also covered to great success by Dutch doll Patricia Paay and British beat babe Sandie Shaw).

Her next single, Wenn es Nacht wird in Harlem, a cover of Percy Sledge’s When a man loves a woman, was a surprising choice but a successful one, reaching number 16 in the German charts.

Several further hits followed, including her last of the 1960s, Helicopter US Navy 66.

After that she enjoyed some success with German versions of Eurovision song contest entries, including Dana’s 1970 Irish winner, All kinds of everything (Alles und noch viel mehr), and Clodagh Rodgers’ 1971 UK entry, Jack in the box (retitled, curiously, Der schwarze Mann auf dem Dach).

In the 1970s she enjoyed a long run at the Dunes hotel in Las Vegas and attempted a number of comebacks. However, a boycott by television station ZDF, following an unsuccessful court case over unpaid earnings, did nothing to help.

Manuela died of cancer in 1991.