Suzanne Doucet

Our pick of the pops

From Schlager to new age music singer, from actress and television presenter, Germany’s Suzanne Doucet has done it all.

Born on 27 August 1948 in Tübingen, southern Germany, Suzanne grew up learning to play the guitar. After leaving school, she toured France and Italy, paying her way by performing in the streets.

After returning to Germany, she was discovered in Munich and whisked off to Berlin to record her first single. Released in the autumn of 1963, Schenk mir einen Tag mit viel Amore flopped.

However, her second single, Das geht doch keinen etwas an, a cover of French hit by Le Petit Prince, C’est bien joli d’être copains, reached number ten in Germany and spent 16 weeks on the charts in the early summer of 1964. Suzanne became an overnight star. (The B-side was even better: Sei mein Baby, a cover of The Ronettes’ Be my baby.)

The follow up, Okay, ich geh’, released in September 1964, sold 300,000 copies.

The bright and breezy So long, so long (which she also released in English in Japan) and Glück und

Liebe made it into the German charts, but each successive release fared worse than the one before it and her luck ran out altogether by the end

of 1965.

A switch of record labels in 1968 saw her

begin recording in London with Les Reed,

Tom Jones’s producer. Their first collaboration

was Nur mit dir, a version of British singer

Kiki Dee’s Baby I don’t care, though the

single failed to make a dent on the charts.

The follow up, Wenn New York brennt, was

one of her better releases, though it also failed

to chart.

She issued her first single in the United States

that same year, the Bee Gees-penned Swan

song, and an album, which she recorded in

seven different languages.

A change of style in the 1970s and a move to

the US in the 1980s helped her achieve

recognition as an authority on new age music.

Sei mein Baby

1964

Wenn New York brennt

1968

Nur mit dir

1968

Suzanne Doucet on YouTube

So long, so long

1965

Suzanne Doucet online

Cover cuts